WordPress AI plugins and the OpenAI model shutdowns

Short answer: WordPress AI plugins keep the OpenAI model in their own settings, and some fall back to a retiring model when the setting is empty: LocoAI uses gpt-4o-mini, and Uncanny Automator's OpenAI actions request gpt-4, which OpenAI shut down on 23 October 2026. Check the model setting in each plugin, or dump the options with WP-CLI and paste them into the scanner.

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Where the model is set

Plugin (active installs)	Where the model is stored	Default or fallback
AI Engine (90,000)	`mwai_options` → `ai_default_model` and the other `ai_*_default_model` keys; chatbots in `mwai_chatbots`	`gpt-5.6-terra`; marks gpt-4o and gpt-4o-mini as deprecated
LocoAI – Auto Translate for Loco Translate (70,000)	`atlt_selected_openai_model`	`gpt-4o-mini` when empty
Uncanny Automator (40,000)	Generate text action: post meta `MODEL`; 9 other OpenAI actions: in the plugin code	`gpt-4` hardcoded (shut down 23 Oct 2026)
AI Puffer, formerly AI Power (10,000)	`aipkit_options` → `providers.OpenAI.model`	`gpt-5.6-luna`
Hyve Lite (7,000)	`hyve_settings` → `chat_model`	`gpt-5.4-nano` (shuts down 1 Apr 2027)

Install counts from WordPress.org and storage keys from each plugin's current code, checked 28 October 2026 (AI Engine 3.8.8, LocoAI 2.7.7, Uncanny Automator 7.7.1, AI Puffer 2.5.17, Hyve Lite 2.0.4).

Fix

Dump the settings with WP-CLI (read-only): wp option get mwai_options --format=json, wp option get mwai_chatbots --format=json, wp option get atlt_selected_openai_model, wp option get aipkit_options --format=json, wp option get hyve_settings --format=json.
Paste the output into the scanner to see which settings name a retiring model.
LocoAI: pick a model explicitly in the plugin's OpenAI settings, so the empty-setting fallback to gpt-4o-mini never applies.
Uncanny Automator: the meta description, SEO title, excerpt, social excerpt, translate, spelling, sentiment and links actions call gpt-4 directly. Expect them to fail until the plugin changes the model. The plugin lets you override it per action with a filter named after the action, for example add_filter( 'open_ai_meta_description_generate_model', fn() => 'MODEL_ID' ); in a small custom plugin, with a current model from your OpenAI account.
AI Engine, AI Puffer, Hyve Lite: open each chatbot and assistant, not only the global default; a chatbot saved with gpt-4o-mini keeps it.
After the change, send one test request through each feature that uses the plugin.

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Watch out

If you pick a reasoning model such as gpt-6-luna, OpenAI says to remove temperature and top_p unless reasoning effort is none; AI Puffer fixed exactly this for GPT-6.1 Sol in version 2.4.98.
Abandoned plugins will not be updated: if a plugin hardcodes a retiring model and has no setting or filter, plan to replace it.

Sources

Other platforms

AI model shutdown calendar and scanner

Facts checked 28 October 2026. Not affiliated with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or WordPress AI plugins.

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