Google CEO Sundar Pichai Is ‘Vibe Coding’ a Website for Fun

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai disclosed that he has been “vibe coding,” or utilizing AI to code for him by way of prompts, to construct a webpage.

Pichai mentioned on Wednesday at Bloomberg Tech in San Francisco that he had been experimenting with AI coding assistants Cursor and Replit, each of that are marketed as in a position to create code from textual content prompts, to construct a brand new webpage.

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“I’ve simply been messing round — both with Cursor or I vibe coded with Replit — making an attempt to construct a customized webpage with all of the sources of data I needed in a single place,” Pichai mentioned, per Enterprise Insider.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures

Pichai mentioned that he had “partially” accomplished the webpage, and that coding had “come a good distance” from its early days.

Vibe coding is a time period coined by OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy. In a submit on X in February, Karpathy described how AI instruments are getting adequate that software program builders can “overlook that the code even exists.” As a substitute, they’ll ask for AI to code on their behalf and create a venture or internet app with out writing a line of code themselves.

There is a new type of coding I name “vibe coding”, the place you totally give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and overlook that the code even exists. It is doable as a result of the LLMs (e.g. Cursor Composer w Sonnet) are getting too good. Additionally I simply speak to Composer with SuperWhisper…

— Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) February 2, 2025

The rise of vibe coding has led AI coding assistants to blow up in recognition. One AI coding software, Cursor, grew to become the fastest-growing software program app to achieve $100 million in annual income in January. Virtually all of Cursor’s income comes from 360,000 particular person subscribers, not large enterprises. Nevertheless, that steadiness might change: As of earlier this week, Amazon is reportedly in talks to undertake Cursor for its staff.

One other coding software, Replit, says it has enabled customers to make greater than two million apps in six months. The corporate has 34 million world customers as of November.

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Noncoders are utilizing vibe coding to convey their concepts to life. Lenard Flören, a 28-year-old artwork director with no prior coding expertise, instructed NBC Information final month that he used AI instruments to vibe code a personalised exercise monitoring app. Harvard College neuroscience pupil, Rishab Jain, 20, instructed the outlet that he used Replit to vibe code an app that interprets historical texts into English. As a substitute of downloading another person’s app and paying a subscription charge, “now you possibly can simply make it,” Jain mentioned.

Fashionable vibe coding instruments provide a free entry level into vibe coding, in addition to subscription plans. Replit has a free tier, a $20 a month core stage with expanded capabilities, equivalent to limitless personal and public apps, and a $35 per person, monthly groups subscription. Cursor additionally has a free tier, a $20 monthly professional stage, and a $40 per person, monthly, enterprise subscription.

Regardless of the existence of vibe coding, Pichai nonetheless thinks that human software program engineers are obligatory. At Bloomberg Tech on Wednesday, Pichai mentioned that Google will maintain hiring human engineers and rising its engineering workforce “even into subsequent yr” as a result of a much bigger workforce “permits us to do extra.”

“I simply view this [AI] as making engineers dramatically extra productive,” he mentioned.

Alphabet is the fifth most useful firm on the planet with a market cap of $2 trillion.