Vibe coding
Vibe coding is building an app by describing it in plain language: a person says what they want, AI writes the code, the person tries the result and refines the request. Nobody reads the code; what matters is whether it works.
The term was coined by Andrej Karpathy in February 2025, and in November 2025 Collins named it Word of the Year. People work in tools such as Lovable, Cursor or Claude Code: you describe a screen or a feature in the chat and have it ready within minutes.
Vibe coding is fast and accessible even to people without a developer background. On its own, though, it doesn't deal with security, architecture or who will maintain the app. That makes it great for prototypes and internal tools, while an app for real customers needs code review, tests and someone who understands the code that was produced.
What it means for your business
For validating an idea or building an internal tool, vibe coding and a few days are enough. Once the app handles customer data or money, it needs the same oversight as any other software.