Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- Identify where Content Classification features appear in the block editor
- Explain how AI-suggested categories and tags differ from manually assigned ones
- Apply Suggest Categories and Suggest Tags to a post and evaluate the suggestions before saving
- Evaluate when AI classification suggestions are helpful and when manual assignment is more appropriate
What Content Classification does
Organizing posts with categories and tags helps readers navigate your site and helps search engines understand your content. The AI Plugin’s Content Classification feature analyzes your post content and suggests relevant categories and tags based on what you have written.
Content Classification is an Editor Experiment. Enable it in Settings > AI > Editor Experiments before using it.
As of AI plugin 1.3.0, Content Classification produces more relevant suggestions than earlier versions. The model now receives better taxonomy context, so it distinguishes more reliably between broad categories and specific tags, and it filters out low-confidence results before showing them to you.
Suggesting categories
With Content Classification enabled, a Suggest Categories button appears at the bottom of the Categories section in the Post Settings panel. Click it and the AI analyzes your post and suggests categories from the ones already on your site.
Review the suggestions and check the ones that apply. Uncheck any that do not fit. You can also add categories manually as usual by clicking Add Category.
📸 Screenshot placeholder: Post Settings panel showing the Categories section with existing categories, the Suggest Categories button, and one or more AI-suggested categories highlighted.
💡 Why this matters for you: If your site has many categories, remembering which ones apply to each post takes mental overhead. Suggest Categories reads your content and surfaces the most relevant options from your existing list, so you spend less time scrolling and more time publishing.
Suggesting tags
The Suggest Tags button appears at the bottom of the Tags section in the Post Settings panel. Click it and the AI suggests tags based on your post content. Suggested tags may include tags already on your site or new ones that do not exist yet.
Review the suggestions and add the ones that fit. Tags on your site are available as you type, so you can also search existing tags manually if you prefer a hybrid approach.
📸 Screenshot placeholder: Post Settings panel showing the Tags section with the Suggest Tags button and a set of AI-suggested tags ready to be added.
For developers: tuning classification behavior
If Content Classification needs to behave differently on your site, three filters give you direct control over how suggestions are generated:
- wpai_content_classification_available_terms customizes which candidate terms are supplied to the model in the first place.
- wpai_content_classification_min_confidence adjusts the minimum confidence score a suggestion must meet before it’s shown.
- wpai_content_classification_candidate_pool_size controls how many candidate terms the model considers when generating suggestions.
These are useful on sites with large or highly specific taxonomies, where the defaults may surface too many, too few, or too generic suggestions.
Applying your own judgment
AI classification suggestions are based on content analysis, not editorial strategy. A few situations where your judgment matters more than the suggestion:
Your site has a precise taxonomy. If categories and tags serve a specific navigation or filtering purpose on your site, the AI may suggest options that are technically relevant but not editorially correct. Always review against your site’s classification strategy.
The post covers multiple topics. The AI may surface several plausible categories. Choosing the right one or two requires knowing how your site is organized and what your readers expect.
Suggested tags do not exist yet. New tag suggestions can be useful or overly specific. Add new tags deliberately rather than accepting every suggestion.
Key terms
| Term | Definition |
| Content Classification | An Editor Experiment that suggests relevant categories and tags for a post based on AI analysis of the post content. |
| Suggest Categories | A button in the Post Settings panel’s Categories section that generates AI-suggested category assignments from your site’s existing categories. |
| Suggest Tags | A button in the Post Settings panel’s Tags section that generates AI-suggested tags based on post content, including both existing and new tags. |
| Taxonomy | The system of categories and tags used to organize content on a WordPress site. |
| Confidence threshold | The minimum confidence score a suggested category or tag must meet before Content Classification surfaces it. Adjustable by developers via the wpai_content_classification_min_confidence filter. |
✅ Check your understanding
- After clicking Suggest Categories, the AI recommends three categories for your post. Two match your editorial intent, but one is technically related yet not how your site organizes this topic. How would you handle the suggestion, and what does this tell you about how to use Content Classification in a site with a well-defined taxonomy?
- Suggest Tags returns several new tags that do not yet exist on your site. What would you consider before adding them?