You don’t have the software coding skills to make that app.
Just build it.
You are on IT’s waitlist. They said they’ll get to your project in 8 months.
Just build it.
You need that online service, but you don’t want to pay the monthly fees.
Just build it.
The Coding Language is English
You depend so much on digital services built by software engineers using languages that may as well be Latin: C++, Java, Python, HTML among many others.
But in the age of AI, you are no longer as dependent as you thought.
Welcome to the world of vibe coding.
Vibe coding, a term coined by OpenAI founder Andrej Karpathy, is building software by describing your deliverable in plain language while an AI writes and revises code in real time. In other words, if you’re reading this article, you can code!
If you don’t believe me, take it from Jensen Huang, CEO and co-founder of NVIDIA, who believes that studying computer science is going the way of studying Latin. He said that over the past 10 to 15 years, it was indeed good advice to encourage your children to learn how to program.
Then he said, “in fact, it’s almost exactly the opposite (today). It is our job to create computing technology such that nobody has to program, and that the programming language is human. Everybody in the world is now a programmer. This is the miracle of artificial intelligence.”
As AI continues to demonstrate its ability to competently take on rule-based, process-based work, particularly highly technical and complex rules and processes, generalists (like me) are routinely surprised, pleasantly, by the increasing number of ways we can create, when before we lacked the technical chops or resources to do so.
You Are the Producer
Rick Rubin is not a singer, musician or a lyricist. But he has vision, taste and an ability to bring the people with the right technical skills together to produce some of the most iconic music albums in recent times.
Brian Grazer is not a director, cinematographer or actor. But he has vision and taste and an ability to bring the people with the right technical skills together to produce some of the most famous films in recent times.
Today, AI is enabling people with no or little software coding knowledge or experience to produce digital products and services. Today, working with so-called vibe coding tools like Lovable, Bolt, Cursor or the large language model chatbots like ChatGPT-5 or Claude Opus 4, you can be the Rick Rubin and Brian Grazer of software.
Take me, the English major/journalist/HR guy, who might in a sleepy moment mistake HTML for an MBTI designation.
I needed a survey for over 25 people, in which people would respond by pointing their smartphone at a QR code, so I could get instant feedback at the end of my workshop. Under those conditions, I would have had to pay for SurveyMonkey’s service. Instead, I built it myself in Lovable, in less than 30 minutes.
I pay WordPress an annual fee to host two of my blogs. And while their website templates are relatively easy to use, they don’t allow me to customize the website look and feel the way I want it. I wanted more control over the design of my website. So I built it myself in Lovable, in less than 6 hours.
The CEO of Lovable, Anton Osika, said that everyone now has the tools to “go from idea to working product without ever touching a formal computer science education.” The Stockholm-based company is currently the fastest growing startup in the world.
Everyone Codes, Everyone Produces
Vibe coding is not just impacting the productivity of individuals. It is beginning to impact the productivity of organizations.
Andrew Ng is one of the most respected thought leaders in artificial intelligence. The founder of Coursera, said that in his company, AI Fund, everyone codes. (See 24 minute mark in video below.)
“I have a controversial opinion,” said the former head of AI for Baidu and Google. “It’s time for everyone of every job role to learn to code. And in fact on my team, my CFO, my head of talent, my recruiters, my front desk person – all of them know how to code. And I actually see all of them performing better at all of their job functions because they can code. I think I’m probably a little bit ahead of the curve. Probably most businesses are not there yet. But in the future I think we empower everyone to code. A lot of people can be more productive.”
Ng is indeed ahead of the curve, but it’s likely organizations small and big, are just making the turn and will definitely accelerate as they hit the bend. Why? Because the potential benefits to organizational productivity will be too good to resist.
When the majority of your employees can create without coding experience, they will interact with others not with emails and PowerPoints, but with mockups and prototypes, which encourage greater engagement in meetings, and moves the group faster to decisions.
When individuals share vibe coding projects, collaboration by people across silos becomes the norm as they can all participate in the production process, no matter their technical capability level.
When employees use vibe coding processes, seeing really is believing. There is no wasted time spent in thinking, researching, talking with people here and there. You create your mock up in the fraction of the time it would take normally.
And because the vibe coding tools document the actual coding of the digital output, the handover to professional developers in your IT department is smooth.
And yes, let the IT professionals help ensure that the software generated by non-technical staff is reviewed, refined and properly cleared for release. Fast prototypes are great, but you still need to make sure they work within your organization’s system, and that they are secure.
But let me be clear – the chance to empower and turn all of your employees into builders is exciting.
One of my favorite AI explainers, Nate B. Jones, states that in order to truly leverage AI, you don’t need to be a software engineer. You need to be a product manager.
Can you specify what you want? Can you recognize when it’s wrong? Can you iterate until it’s right? That’s not programming. It’s product management. It’s design thinking. It’s clear communication. It’s not that AI writes flawless code. It’s that clear thinkers can now build useful things immediately, specifically, personally. The gap between “I need this” and “I have this” has shrunk to 25 minutes of clear communication. If it’s that close, you can build too!
ARTICLE FAQS
1. What is vibe coding?
Vibe coding refers to creating software by describing what you want in plain language while AI generates and refines the code in real time. It allows people with little or no technical background to build digital tools and services.
2. Why does vibe coding matter for non-technical professionals?
It reduces reliance on professional programmers for simple tools and prototypes, giving anyone the ability to test ideas quickly. This empowers generalists and subject-matter experts to turn concepts into working products without waiting for IT.
3. How does vibe coding affect organizational productivity?
Teams can enter discussions with working mockups instead of static presentations, leading to faster decision-making and more engaged collaboration. It also smooths handoffs to IT since the generated code is documented and ready for refinement.
4. Will IT departments become less important?
Not at all. While vibe coding democratizes building, IT professionals are still critical for ensuring systems are secure, scalable, and integrated. Vibe coding shifts their role from bottlenecks to partners in refining and deploying prototypes.
5. What skills are most important in a vibe coding workplace?
The key skills are clear communication, product thinking, and iteration. Being able to specify what you want, recognize errors, and refine outputs is more important than knowing programming languages.
6. What is the long-term impact of vibe coding?
As more employees build their own tools, organizations will see faster innovation, fewer silos, and greater inclusivity in problem solving. Over time, coding may become less about technical syntax and more about clarity of thought and design.
