Vibe coding means building software mainly by describing what you want to an AI assistant in plain language and letting it write the code.
In plain words
AI researcher Andrej Karpathy coined the term in early 2025. Instead of typing code line by line, you describe the goal, the AI writes code, you run it, and you ask for changes until it works. In its loosest form you trust the output without reading it, which suits quick throwaway projects. For serious work, people still review and test what the AI produced. Collins named it its Word of the Year for 2025.
A quick example
Imagine you want a small web page that tracks your reading list. You ask an AI tool to make one, try it, then say "add a button to mark a book as finished". A few rounds later it works, even though you never wrote a line yourself.
Where you'll meet it
- Quick prototypes and personal projects.
- Letting people with little coding experience build simple apps.
Related
Sources
- DocsWhat is vibe coding?, Google Cloud · read 29 Sept 2026
- DocsCollins Word of the Year 2025, Collins Dictionary · read 29 Sept 2026
Checked by WhatIsAI against the sources above · 29 Sept 2026. Spotted an error? Report it.