I Vibe Coded more pet projects in 3 month, than I built in the year before. And it made me more convinced than ever, that not everyone should.
I hear it everywhere: "Soon everyone will just build their own apps, thanks to Vibe Coding."
But honestly? I think that's nonsense.
With the same logic, we'd all 3D-print our own homes (because we can use a floor plan app, right?) or cut our own hair after watching a few tutorials.
We don't – or rather, some of us try, realize the limits, and go back to the professional. Because we live in a society built on specialization. Some people get really, really good at certain things, and they do them faster and better than the rest of us.
UX/UI is no different.
→ Don't get me wrong: democratizing design and development is a good thing. My concern is that we're not actually democratizing design and development – we're democratizing a perceived shortcut to the result.
Here's what I've realized:
The clients now Vibe-Coding their own solutions entirely on their own? They were probably never our clients. They're more likely the ones who used to rely on website builders and no-code tools before. And if that meets their needs, that's completely fine – in fact, it's a win.
The clients who do hire us understand something fundamental:
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The value of design doesn't lie in visual aesthetics and features alone – it lies in the process of understanding (aka User Centricity).
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The value of interfaces isn't in the code itself - it's in a deep grasp of users and the medium (usability, best practices, accessibility, privacy compliance, security... you get the idea).
And that's where both the risk and the opportunity live.
🔴 The Risk: If everyone thinks they can skip straight to the result – without understanding the problem they're solving, without knowing their audience, without the ability to evaluate quality (design, security, accessibility...) – we end up drowning in AI slop. And people are already tired of that. A tool doesn't replace judgment. It amplifies it. For better or worse.
🟢 The Opportunity: When you combine deep knowledge of the entire process with the blazing speed of generative AI, you can go further, faster – and deliver more efficient, often better results. And entirely new players enter the field: domain experts who could never build before, now can. That expands the market, it doesn't just redistribute it.
So where do I see the real potential of Vibe Coding right now?
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Domain experts with deep specialized knowledge who can now build their own tools without having to laboriously translate their expertise to product teams first – a doctor prototyping a patient-facing tool, an analyst building their own dashboard. If they have the time and resources to do that on top of their work, this is genuinely powerful.
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People with product development expertise (UX designers, for example) who gain implementation speed and new capabilities through AI – because they know how to steer it, critique it, and refine it.
For everyone else? Vibe Coding is the new sourdough: everyone tried it during a moment of enthusiasm (or lockdown), most results were mediocre, a few discovered a genuine passion – and the good bakeries are still fully booked.