Vibe Coding: A New Way to Build Websites and Apps with AI — Opportunity or Risk for Business?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) no longer just helps write articles or create images. Now AI can even build websites, applications, and business systems just through conversation in everyday language. This approach is known as vibe coding, a term that has become a global trend since 2025.
For business owners, startups, and SMEs, this concept sounds very appealing. Imagine, someone with no programmer background can now create an application prototype just by explaining an idea to AI.
However, behind this convenience lie a number of risks that need to be understood before using it for business needs.
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What Is Vibe Coding?
The term vibe coding was first introduced in February 2025 by Andrej Karpathy, a computer scientist who was once a co-founder of OpenAI and former Director of AI at Tesla.
Karpathy described this approach as building applications by following the “vibe” or intuition. The user simply explains what they want built to AI, and the AI then generates the program code automatically. The user typically just runs the result, requests revisions through follow-up prompts, and repeats the process until the application is finished.
Unlike conventional programming, the user doesn’t always understand how the code works. The main focus is the end result, not the process of writing code.
In 2025 the term began to be widely recognized. Merriam-Webster included it as a popular slang term, while Collins Dictionary named it Word of the Year 2026.
How Does Vibe Coding Work?
In simple terms, the vibe coding process runs in the following cycle.
- The user explains their needs using natural language.
- The AI generates program code.
- The code is run.
- If there are errors or features that aren’t quite right, the user provides a follow-up prompt.
- The AI fixes the code.
- The process repeats until the application is considered finished.
Google Cloud explains that the quality of results heavily depends on the context given to the AI. The clearer the business goal, the technology used, system constraints, and desired design, the better the resulting output.
Why Has Vibe Coding Become Popular?
Its popularity has grown because AI is now able to generate increasingly higher-quality code. Various platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf, Replit, and Lovable have made the software development process much faster than a few years ago.
In fact, according to a Y Combinator report in 2025, around 25% of startups in the Winter 2025 batch had codebases that were about 95% AI-generated.
Advantages of Vibe Coding for Business
1. Ideas Become Products Faster
Normally an idea takes weeks or even months before becoming a prototype. With AI’s help, a landing page, dashboard, or simple application can be built in just a matter of hours.
2. Lowering Initial Costs
For startups and SMEs, building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) becomes much cheaper. Business owners can test an idea in the market first before making a large investment.
3. Opening Opportunities for Non-Programmers
Vibe coding allows people without programming skills to still create simple applications. This speeds up the innovation process because ideas don’t always have to wait for a development team.
4. Increased Team Productivity
Professional developers also make use of AI to speed up routine work such as creating CRUD operations, documentation, testing, and debugging, so they can focus more on solving business problems.
Disadvantages and Risks of Vibe Coding
Although promising, nearly all credible sources emphasize that the biggest risk is not AI’s ability to generate code, but rather when humans trust that output without conducting a review.
1. Users Don’t Understand the Code
This is the main criticism of the vibe coding concept. Many users directly accept AI’s output without knowing how the system works.
When a bug occurs, performance drops, or security issues arise, they struggle to fix it because they don’t understand the application’s structure.
2. Cybersecurity Risks
IBM, various cybersecurity companies, and a number of academic studies show that AI-generated code can contain security vulnerabilities if not reviewed again.
Earlier Stanford research found that GitHub Copilot produced security vulnerabilities in about 40% of code samples for security-related tasks.
In 2026, Georgia Tech SSLab also reported an increasing number of CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) linked to AI-generated code.
3. Dependency Hallucination
AI sometimes generates library or package names that don’t actually exist. This phenomenon is known as slopsquatting.
The Cloud Security Alliance found that nearly 20% of AI code samples contained invalid dependencies. If left unchecked, this condition can be exploited by cybercriminals.
4. Data Leaks
Many users unknowingly enter API keys, passwords, tokens, or customer data into AI prompts.
Yet this information can become sensitive company data if used improperly.
5. Difficult to Maintain
Business applications typically evolve over years. If all the code is created by AI without documentation and without being understood by developers, future maintenance costs can actually increase.
Real Case Example
In early 2026, the Moltbook platform came under the spotlight after its founder admitted that nearly the entire application was built using AI.
Within three days of launch, security researchers from Wiz discovered a production database leak that exposed around 1.5 million API tokens as well as tens of thousands of user email addresses.
This case serves as a reminder that the speed of building an application must not come at the expense of security.
Is Vibe Coding Suitable for Business?
The answer is yes, but with clear limits.
Vibe coding is very effective for use in:
- creating prototypes;
- landing pages;
- business idea validation;
- MVPs;
- automating simple tasks;
- internal company experiments.
However, for applications that handle customer data, financial transactions, ERP systems, HRIS, or company operational systems, AI should only be a supporting tool for professional developers, not a replacement for the software engineering process.
Tips for Using Vibe Coding Safely
- Use AI as an assistant, not a replacement for developers.
- Always conduct a code review before use.
- Never enter passwords, tokens, or sensitive data into a prompt.
- Perform security testing before the application is published.
- Make sure the dependencies and libraries used are actually valid.
- Use version control such as Git so changes can be tracked.
- Document the system that has been built.
- Involve experienced developers for production applications.
Conclusion
Vibe coding is one of the biggest changes in the world of software development since the arrival of generative AI. This technology allows business ideas to be realized much faster with lower initial costs.
However, speed does not mean eliminating the basic principles of software engineering. Security, code quality, documentation, testing, and maintenance remain the factors that determine an application’s success in the long run.
For business owners, the best approach is to leverage AI to accelerate innovation, while still involving professionals once the application starts being used by customers or becomes a core part of company operations.
Bibliography
- Wikipedia. Vibe coding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibe_coding
- IBM. What is Vibe Coding? https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/vibe-coding
- IBM. Vibe Coding Security Risks Aren’t Like Ordinary Security Risks. https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/vibe-coding-security-risks
- Google Cloud. Vibe Coding Explained. https://cloud.google.com/discover/what-is-vibe-coding
- Google. Ask a Techspert: What is Vibe Coding? https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/techspert-what-is-vibe-coding/
- MIT Technology Review. What is Vibe Coding, Exactly? https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/16/1115135/what-is-vibe-coding-exactly/
- Forbes. What Is Vibe Coding? And Why Should You Care? https://www.forbes.com/sites/nishatalagala/2025/03/30/what-is-vibe-coding-and-why-should-you-care/
- Replit. What is Vibe Coding? https://replit.com/blog/what-is-vibe-coding
- Merriam-Webster. Vibe Coding. https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/vibe-coding
- Tanium. What is Vibe Coding? The Pros, Cons and Controversies. https://www.tanium.com/blog/what-is-vibe-coding/
- Arnica. Vibe Coding Security Risks You Can’t Ignore. https://www.arnica.io/blog/vibe-coding-security-risks
- Cloud Security Alliance. Research on AI-generated package hallucination (2026).
- Stanford University. Research on Security Weaknesses in AI-assisted Code Generation.
- Georgia Tech SSLab. Vibe Security Radar.
