The phrase “vibe coding” was coined in early 2025 for a new way of programming: you describe what you want in plain language, an AI assistant writes the code, you run it, describe what’s wrong, and repeat. You steer by results rather than by reading every line.
Why it matters for office work
Most people who live in Excel have a list of small tools they wish existed: merge 40 monthly files, rename scanned invoices by their contents, check a supplier list against GSTINs, turn a report into an email. These were never worth hiring a developer for. With an AI assistant, an afternoon is often enough.
What it is good at
- Small, single-purpose tools with clear inputs and outputs
- Glue between systems you already use (Excel, CSV, PDFs, email)
- Prototypes to show what you want before asking IT for the real thing
Where it fails
- Vague goals — “make a dashboard” produces something, but rarely what you needed.
- Large systems — past a few hundred lines, unreviewed changes start breaking earlier work.
- Anything touching money, passwords or personal data without checks.
The mindset
Think of yourself as the product owner and tester, and the AI as a very fast junior developer. You own the what (clear requirements, sample data, expected results) and the check (does the output match?). The AI owns the typing.
Stuck on a step? Ask a question and the AI answers using this article.