How to Create an AI-Powered WordPress Form
Staring at an empty form builder and deciding which fields to add, in what order, with what labels, is a surprisingly common point where people give up before they’ve started. Contactum‘s AI Form Generator skips that step entirely — describe the form you need in a sentence, and it builds a starting set of fields for you to refine.
Step 1: Add Your OpenAI API Key
The AI Form Generator runs on OpenAI, so you’ll need an API key from platform.openai.com. Go to Contactum → Settings → AI Form Generator, paste the key in, and save — Contactum validates it against OpenAI before accepting it, so you’ll know immediately if something’s wrong with the key rather than finding out mid-generation.
Step 2: Describe the Form You Want
Instead of building field-by-field, describe the form in plain language — the more specific, the better the result. Compare:
Vague: “a contact form”
Specific: “a rental application form with full name, phone, email, desired move-in date, monthly income, and a field for pet details”
The specific version gives the AI concrete field names and types to generate against, rather than defaulting to a generic four-field template.
Step 3: Review What It Built
The AI generates a set of fields with sensible labels and field types (a “move-in date” description reliably becomes a Date field, “monthly income” a Number field, and so on), which lands you in the normal form builder — not a separate AI-only screen. Treat the result as a strong first draft: check that required fields are actually marked required, that field types match what you expect, and that nothing important is missing before you consider the form done.
Step 4: Refine Like Any Other Form
From here it’s the same builder as always — drag to reorder, click a field to adjust its label or width, add a field the AI missed, delete one you don’t need. The AI step just replaces the blank canvas with a reasonable starting point; everything after that is manual, exactly as if you’d built it by hand from the beginning.
Good Use Cases
This works especially well for forms with an unusual or specific shape you’d otherwise have to plan out manually — job applications, intake forms for a specific service, event registrations with unusual custom fields. For a plain contact form, starting from Contactum’s built-in template is just as fast and doesn’t need an API key at all.
A Note on Cost
Generation calls OpenAI’s API using your own key, so usage is billed to your OpenAI account under your own plan and rate limits — Contactum itself doesn’t charge anything extra for this feature. For occasional form creation, the cost is negligible; it only becomes a consideration if you’re generating forms constantly.