They're not looking to make billions, but they're still having fun building with AI.
Conversations about AI these days have high stakes: valuations in the trillions, job cuts in the thousands. For vibe coders, or non-coders using AI programs to create apps, it's often small potatoes. And that's not a bad thing.
BI's Juliana Kaplan has a fun piece about these "normies" using AI to plan wedding seat charts or decide the best day to wash their hair. Juliana even gave it a shot, vibe coding an app to help her decide whether it was worth trekking up a hill to a local grocery store for specific deals.
Vibe coding isn't just about getting quick fixes to specific problems. As Juliana notes, it also gets you to think critically.
While a lot of AI is about outsourcing skills you risk eroding, vibe coding helps people pick up new ones. They learn how to build, tweak, and launch tools they could only have dreamed of previously.
Some see vibe coding as another attempt to force the tech down our throats.
On our landing page for our "Vibe Code Your Life" series, a comment stood out to me:
"Ah..the not so subtle nudge to find an opening that will drive more AI adoption cuz these folks need to earn back their trillions invested."
AI backlash is growing louder, and for legitimate reasons. Money is being spent, and jobs are disappearing without a clear ROI on the tech.
That's the beauty of vibe coding. These aren't billion-dollar projects that someone hopes will one day pan out; they're making an impact for their creators right away.
It's a firefighter building an app to shop for groceries more efficiently. An entrepreneur using AI to organize the construction of his forever home. A new mom who wanted simple answers about which solids she should feed her baby every day. A dad who needed a way to find short-term nannies for one-off gigs.
It's a newsletter writer who wants to know the best color and inseam for his shorts depending on the weather. (Just kidding … or am I?)
These apps won't be the next OpenAI or Anthropic — don't sleep on Sky's out, thighs out — but that's not the point.
While Corporate America scrambles to justify its AI bets, vibe coders are already getting returns on theirs.
Dan is the lead writer for BI Today, Business Insider's flagship daily newsletter. Dan often interviews executives about everything from AI's impact on capitalism to robotics to the potential SaaSpocalypse as part of his work on the newsletter.Dan was an editor and reporter at BI, covering financial technology and market structure.His previous work includes everything from inside Robinhood's failed "Checking and Savings" product that eventually led to Congress getting involved to the internal arguments over JPMorgan's failed attempt to launch a finance app for millennials.Before joining Business Insider, Dan wrote about risk management in derivatives markets for Risk.net and fintech for WatersTechnology. He initially covered local sports for The Journal News, a daily newspaper serving the lower Hudson Valley. Got a tip? Contact this editor via email at [email protected].
