CEOs are increasingly using AI coding tools to “vibe code” or instruct AI to code on their behalf, says the CEO of a popular vibe coding tool called Replit. Chief executives are now walking into meetings with working demos of their ideas instead of just slide decks.

Vibe coding occurs when users tap into AI coding tools to quickly cobble together functional versions of apps or websites. These tools handle the technical aspects of bringing an idea to life, letting leaders focus on high-level overviews rather than getting bogged down in the details of programming. 

Replit CEO Amjad Masad said on an episode of the Possible podcast published earlier this week that some CEOs are showing off what they have built with vibe coding tools at meetings. Mossad says many leaders have long felt “disempowered” because they let others handle most technical work. The result is that they don’t fully understand how products take shape.

“They don’t have as much input on the process,” Masad said on the podcast. 

Related: I ‘Vibe Coded’ an App Using AI — and Got a Working Product in Under 5 Minutes for Free. Here’s How I Did It.

By vibe coding prototypes themselves, CEOs can experiment on their own and enter conversations with a concrete product. “We have CEOs that finally feel unleashed,” Masad said. 

He described CEOs who no longer have to “beg someone” more technically proficient, like a company engineer, to create a product. They can “just vibe code” and create a working demo. 

A leader with a rough prototype can ask a sharper question: Why does a production-ready version take weeks when a basic one takes only a few days? The existence of vibe coding tools forces teams to examine process timing and complexity. 

Related: Want to Build an App? Here’s How ‘Vibe Coding’ with AI Can Help You Do It in Minutes.

Masad says that the goal is to reach a point where teams can exist in a fully “creative space.” “We want to get to a point where you don’t have to code at all,” he said. 

Instead, teams can describe what they want and let AI tools translate that intent into working software. Masad argued that “minutiae” and “accidental complexity,” or technical details, hold back much of traditional coding. Vibe coding eliminates the need for technical knowledge to create working products. 

Major CEOs have already experimented with vibe coding. For example, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in June at Bloomberg Tech in San Francisco that he had been vibe coding with AI tools Cursor and Replit to create a webpage. 

“I’ve just been messing around…trying to build a custom webpage with all the sources of information I wanted in one place,” Pichai said at the event. He added that coding had “come a long way” from its early days.

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