Core AI: Title generation includes meta text, special characters, and creates invalid/overlong slug

[PriyankaGusani]

Description

While testing the Core AI title generation feature in WordPress 7.0 RC, I encountered an issue where the generated title is not clean and affects the slug as well.

Expected behavior:

Generate a clean, concise, SEO-friendly title
No extra formatting, explanations, or special characters
Slug should be short, readable, and optimized

Actual behavior:

Generated title includes:

Introductory/meta text:
Based on the content and context, here's an optimized title suggestion:

Markdown/special characters:

**, *, ###

Character count info:

(48 characters)

Additional explanation like:

Why this works:
The slug is auto-generated using the entire content, resulting in:
Extremely long slug
Inclusion of irrelevant words
Poor SEO structure

Why this is an issue:

SEO Impact: Long and messy slugs hurt rankings and readability
UX Issue: Users expect ready-to-use titles, not explanations
Data Quality: Invalid characters (*, #, etc.) should not be present
Automation Risk: If auto-saved, it can publish incorrect metadata

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

1. Created a new post
2. Added content
3. Clicked on “Re-generate title”

Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet

Environment info

WordPress Version: 7.0 RC (Beta)
Feature: Core AI (Title Generation)
Browser: Chrome (latest)
Setup: Local/Development environment

Please confirm that you have searched existing issues in the repo.

• Yes

Please confirm that you have tested with all plugins deactivated except the AI plugin.

• Yes

Please confirm which theme type you used for testing.

• Block
• Classic
• Hybrid (e.g. classic with theme.json)
• Not sure

[sagardholakiya]

I have tested this issue on my end as well and can confirm the same behavior.

The generated title includes extra explanatory text, markdown characters (**, ###), and character count details, which should not be part of the final title. This also results in an unnecessarily long and unoptimized slug.

This does not meet the expected output of a clean, concise, and SEO-friendly title.

[AasthaPandya]

I’ve tested this issue on my end as well and can confirm that the same behavior occurs.

The generated title contains additional explanatory text, markdown formatting (such as ** and ###), and character count information, none of which should appear in the final title. As a result, the slug becomes overly long and not properly optimized.

This output does not align with the expectation of a clear, concise, and SEO-friendly title.

[divyawpdev]

I’m also facing the same problem while testing the new AI title generation feature.

• The generated title is too long and descriptive, more like a summary than a title
• The slug is automatically created using the same long string, making the URL unreadable and not SEO-friendly
• This behavior requires manual editing, which reduces the usefulness of the feature

Ideally, the AI should generate short, clear, and SEO-optimized titles, not full sentence-like outputs.

[dkotter]

What provider/models are you all using? I'm assuming it's likely smaller, locally run models as those tend to not follow instructions very well which would lead to results like this