The fascination of vibe coding
By Andre Kranke I 5 minute read
27/02/2026
The enormous potential of the much-hyped “vibe coding” is captivating the various digitalization stakeholders in companies of all industries. If you want to join in the discussion here, however, you need to be aware of some fundamental differences.
Over the past few decades, billions of lines of software code have been created to turn digital visions and concepts into reality. Many small and large IT systems and programs have also emerged in logistics, without which an efficient supply chain would be inconceivable today.
At many companies, there are two groups of people: One group consists of those who design and commission digital solutions and innovations from a user perspective. In other words, they are process and product experts who have a clear idea of how digital solutions can benefit day-to-day operations. The other group is the people who translate these ideas and concepts into IT architecture and concrete lines of code—i.e., software developers and architects. Intelligent digital solutions can be developed only when both groups work closely together.
AI opens up new approaches
This model has proven successful for decades, but now it’s being shaken up by artificial intelligence, and large language models (LLM) in particular. “Vibe coding” is set to revolutionize software development. It offers anyone the chance to create computer programs, even if they have no programming skills. As with every much-hyped trend, expectations for vibe coding are extremely high. It won’t be able to live up to all hopes and promises in practice, however. Nevertheless, it has great potential, and we’ll see this future technology being used more and more by all stakeholders in digitalization.
We’ll see this future technology being used more and more by all stakeholders in digitalization.
Intuitive creation of simple prototypes
Vibe coding is often used as an umbrella term for all types of AI-supported and AI-guided software programming, but it actually describes a form of software development in which the “developer” no longer needs to know anything about programming languages or program codes. Using special AI tools such as Bolt.new or Lovable, the user describes the result they want using well-formulated text-based prompts. For example, they may request a website with certain input fields, database access, and output formats. They immediately receive an applicable result that can be improved and optimized step by step. These users fully give in to a more intuitive design process, or “vibe,” as AI researcher Andrej Karpathy first described in an online post in February 2025 when he coined the term “vibe coding.”
This type of programming already works surprisingly well today when it comes to implementing ideas quickly and developing simple initial prototypes. Process and product experts no longer necessarily need a developer in the early phases of software development. However, vibe coding is currently not a solution for more complex prototypes or even the creation of programs in a corporate environment. This is because code generated by the AI is usually poorly structured, inefficient, and often contains security vulnerabilities. At present, vibe coding in the environment of a high-performance enterprise architecture is inconceivable.
As part of the “Future Lab” series, results from the Corporate Research & Development department are presented, which were developed in collaboration with specialist departments and branches as well as the DACHSER Enterprise Lab at the Fraunhofer IML and other research and technology partners.
Vibe coding is often used as an umbrella term for all types of AI-supported and AI-guided software programming, but it actually describes a form of software development in which the “developer” no longer needs to know anything about programming languages or program codes.
AI agents as the next evolutionary step
In this area of software development, however, “agentic coding” could revolutionize the way we program in the future. Instead of performing tasks such as creating user interfaces, self-contained program logics, and their documentation themselves, an experienced [k1] software developer uses special AI agents that can take over these tasks and significantly reduce the time required for programming. However, there are still challenges when creating extensive changes and complex functions; for example, it’s not uncommon for the AI agents to make unwanted changes to other parts of the program and existing workflows. Well-known tools for agentic coding include Cursor or Claude Code. Such coding agents will one day also be able to provide support throughout the entire software life cycle, from development and operation through to error analysis and troubleshooting.
All these technologies are already available today, offering different pros and cons and requiring different user skills.
Support for developers
In programming today, artificial intelligence is most commonly used in the form of tools that assist the developer in the coding process. The AI can suggest lines of code for the developer to adapt and approve. Or the AI can check certain sections of code and suggest improvements to the developer. An AI can also develop targeted proposals and carry out reviews for IT architecture planning. Nevertheless, this type of AI-assisted programming still requires the expertise of an experienced software developer.
The umbrella term “vibe coding” is certainly more than just short-term hype. Various innovative AI tools will very quickly find their way into the entire software development chain and change existing structures. But anyone talking about vibe coding should be clear about whether they really mean that or whether they’re actually talking about agentic or AI-assisted coding.
All these technologies are already available today, offering different pros and cons and requiring different user skills. It will be exciting to see how these individual facets of AI programming continue to develop and how this will affect the various job profiles in digitalization.
