WordPress 7.1, codenamed "Mary Lou" after jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams, shipped August 19, 2026, timed to close out WordCamp US in Phoenix. For developers and agencies who build and maintain WordPress sites, the release matters less for headline features and more for closing gaps that have made the block editor cumbersome in team settings. The most consequential addition is native responsive styling and pseudo-state controls directly in the Site Editor: designers can now set hover, focus, and active states, and adjust breakpoint-specific styles, without dropping into custom CSS or a third-party page builder. That closes a long-standing gap versus tools like Elementor and shrinks the custom CSS surface area teams have to maintain and audit going forward. The second big shift is collaboration: an expanded "Notes" feature adds asynchronous commenting with rich text and emoji reactions directly in the editor, effectively building lightweight Google-Docs-style review into core rather than requiring a plugin or a separate review workflow. For shops that manage client sites, this can replace ad hoc Slack threads or email chains for content sign-off before publishing. 7.1 also ships automated migration tooling for Classic themes moving to the block system, two new core blocks (Tabs and Playlist), a redesigned media organization and editing modal, and a "Guidelines" feature letting site owners constrain what AI tools are permitted to touch or generate within a site. Notably, a planned deprecation of the Classic block was reversed on July 7, 2026 after community pushback, so sites still relying on Classic-block content are not being forced onto a migration timeline by this release. For a platform that still runs a large share of the web, core absorbing collaboration and styling features that previously required paid plugins is a meaningful shift in what a stock WordPress install can do, and it is worth a staged update-and-test cycle before the next round of minor patches lands.