Lately I’ve seen a lot of discussion about “vibe coding.”
The idea is simple.
You tell an AI what you want, it generates code, and somehow an application appears.
As someone currently building a SaaS platform called LaunchPad360 almost entirely through AI-assisted development, I should probably be the poster child for vibe coding.
But the more time I spend doing this, the more I think the term misses what is actually happening.
What People Think Vibe Coding Is
The stereotype goes something like this:
A person who cannot code opens an AI chat window and says:
“Build me a CRM.”
The AI generates some code.
The user says:
“Looks good.”
A few prompts later, they have software.
In this version of the story, the human contributes ideas while the AI does all of the real work.
Sometimes that happens.
But I don’t think that’s what serious software development looks like.
The Code Was Never the Hard Part
Building LaunchPad360 has taught me something unexpected.
The difficult part isn’t writing code.
The difficult part is deciding what the software should do.
Every feature raises questions:
- What is a business?
- What is a location?
- What is a contact?
- Can a contact belong to multiple businesses?
- How should permissions work?
- What information belongs in a knowledge base?
- What relationships should exist between records?
- What should happen when a business grows?
These are not coding questions.
They are business questions.
And AI cannot answer them for you.
AI Is Acting as the Developer
When I work on LaunchPad360, I rarely spend time thinking about syntax.
Instead, I spend my time thinking about workflows, relationships, edge cases, and business requirements.
I describe what should happen.
The AI determines how to implement it.
In many ways, AI has become the developer.
But that doesn’t eliminate the need for expertise.
It shifts where expertise is required.
The Real Skill Is System Design
The biggest misconception about AI-assisted development is that software magically appears.
It doesn’t.
Someone still needs to understand the business.
Someone still needs to understand the users.
Someone still needs to make hundreds of architectural decisions.
Someone still needs to determine whether the software solves a real problem.
The code may be generated.
The system design is not.
Why Domain Experts Have an Advantage
For years, many people with great ideas struggled because they couldn’t write software.
Today, AI is changing that.
The people who may benefit the most are not programmers.
They are business owners, consultants, operators, marketers, and industry experts who deeply understand their field.
If you understand a problem well enough, AI can help you build a solution.
The barrier is no longer coding knowledge.
The barrier is understanding.
Maybe We Need a Better Name
“Vibe coding” makes it sound like software appears through intuition and luck.
What I’m seeing is something different.
AI is reducing the importance of knowing how to write code.
It is increasing the importance of knowing what to build.
That’s not vibe coding.
That’s software development with a different division of labor.
The developer is no longer typing every line of code.
But the thinking still matters.
And in many cases, it matters more than ever.