Vibe Coding? A Strategic Perspective

Specialist departments are building their own tools overnight. Software is being created without any traditional programming.

Vibe Coding is no longer a niche phenomenon. It is reality and is changing how software is built, who develops it, and how companies use it to gain competitive advantages.

The central question is no longer whether companies should use Vibe Coding, but how they should approach it consciously.

Before forming an opinion about Vibe Coding, we should first draw a clear distinction, because two fundamentally different phenomena hide behind the same term.

A quick prompt and a file with sales data, and suddenly there's an easy-to-use tool that simplifies customer segmentation. Vibe Coding makes it easy for people in specialist departments without extensive IT knowledge to build such applications. Increasingly, custom tools are emerging: analytics applications, automations, and internal dashboards.

What Excel used to be, AI-generated code is today.

The barrier to entry has dropped dramatically, but so has the security level. Typical problems include insecure implementations, missing access controls, data protection violations, poor maintainability, and dependency on individuals.

A new form of uncontrolled shadow IT is emerging. And as with any shadow structure, it does not arise from ignorance, but from a genuine need that the organization is not addressing quickly enough.

On the other side stands the use of generative AI by experienced software developers. Here, Vibe Coding acts as a massive productivity lever: faster implementation, automated testing, support for refactoring, and accelerated documentation.

The crucial difference: professional Vibe Coders possess the knowledge required to bear the responsibility as well. Architecture, security, integration logic, and quality standards are not delegated—they are accelerated by AI.

This shifts the bottleneck away from writing code towards understanding, designing, evaluating, and integrating systems.

This development is not hypothetical. It is already happening. Technology companies report sharply rising shares of AI-generated code in new systems. Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO, reported in October 2025 that 50% of code at Google is already written by AI. Claude Code, Anthropic's coding system, was itself largely developed, tested, and optimized by Claude within just a few days.

The consequence: the speed at which software is created is changing fundamentally—and with it, the rules of competition. When news of Claude's independent development became public, shares of SaaS providers went into freefall. Who still needs off-the-shelf solutions when simple prompts make it possible to build software tailor-made for your own processes—with no ongoing licensing fees?

Used correctly, Vibe Coding opens up new strategic options. It is then more than a matter of efficiency. It can become a strategic differentiator. However, advantages do not materialise equally across all industries and companies.

Massive Productivity Gains

In companies where software development is a core process, development times are shrinking dramatically. Prototypes are created in hours rather than weeks. Where a team of 3 to 6 people used to spend several days or weeks on a task, one person working with multiple AI agents can now produce the same output in minutes to hours.

New Patterns of Innovation

Such a surge in speed allows for more experiments in a shorter time. This enables rapid iterations and learning cycles, including failures, because both personnel costs and IT effort remain so low that they can be deliberately accepted.

Competitive Advantages

Companies that build working systems faster can respond more quickly to market changes, address customer needs more individually, and make better use of internal efficiency potential.

From Builder to Orchestrator

For software companies and IT departments that develop their own systems, Vibe Coding means a fundamental role shift. Writing code is no longer the primary focus; instead it is about shaping the conditions under which development takes place. This includes:

IT becomes the orchestrating authority in an increasingly decentralised development landscape.

Citizen Development can generate advantages for companies that lack their own development department, provided that rules are established early and effectively about what is and is not permitted within Vibe Coding.

Reduced Vendor Dependency

It is no longer necessary to purchase a tool for every use case; in many instances, one can be created in-house with manageable effort. When done with the necessary care, this can even offer advantages from a data protection perspective, if data never leaves the company at all.

Democratization of Software Development

Specialist departments can develop their own solutions. Dependency on central IT decreases—at least partially. This makes it possible to create solutions more quickly and often more precisely. Support and guidelines from the IT department are helpful and advisable in this context.

Motivation, Skill Development, and Validation

Developing a working solution for your own department can be a tremendous task—one that motivates and provides validation through the result alone. The sense of self-efficacy benefits. In addition, employees broaden their skill set and gain intensive experience with AI, which generally leads to a better understanding of these systems.

Between Empowerment and Overwhelm

For specialist departments, Vibe Coding opens up new possibilities, but also brings new responsibilities. On the positive side: faster problem-solving, greater autonomy, and reduced dependency on IT experts.

The benefits, however, unfold only fully if the risks are minimized: such as excessive trust in AI outputs, security vulnerabilities, or being overwhelmed by new requirements.

The transformation can succeed when a basic AI literacy is in place, clear guardrails are established, and safe environments for experimentation are provided. People from IT should also be involved as advisors and structuring capacity. Without such a structure, the result is not empowerment but uncertainty.

The opportunities are real, but they do not come without side effects. Before companies open the door wide to Vibe Coding, they should be aware of the areas of tension and develop a mandatory framework of action—for both citizen developers and professional Vibe Coders—that sets out possibilities and boundaries. That means clarity about what is desired, what is permitted, and what is not.

1. Governance vs. Speed

Too much control stifles innovation. Too little control leads to chaos, security vulnerabilities, and wasted resources. Operational charters help to set the boundaries within which participants are free to move. Boundaries must not be crossed without consultation.

2. Quality Is Not Arbitrary

AI-generated code often works, but is not always comprehensible, maintainable, or secure. "It runs" is not a sufficient quality criterion and must never replace the criterion "it is well built." What helps are targeted training courses in Vibe Coding and "good software creation"—not only for citizen developers, but also for experienced professionals. 

There is even the option of embedding software development guidelines directly into an AI coding assistant. Read more about that here.

3. Role Shifts

Developers are becoming architects, reviewers, and integrators, while specialist departments are taking on technical tasks that were previously entirely unfamiliar to them. This fundamentally changes competency profiles.

Competency management thus becomes a central organizational task. Employees need opportunities for targeted upskilling, because competencies do not simply emerge just because a new task is defined.

4. Organizational Complexity

This also brings about organizational changes. Teams may become smaller, and task boundaries must be redrawn. Task design, team design, and organizational design become challenges for managers, HR, and top management. New process structures and changed ways of working emerge as a result.

The IT landscape is also changing: more tools, more code, more interfaces. All of this needs to be documented and maintained. Without a clear structure, complexity grows faster than the ability to manage it.

5. Psychological Effects

Just because Vibe Coding allows solutions to be developed so quickly does not mean things become easier for employees. On the contrary, stress can actually increase because the pressure of expectations grows alongside Vibe Coding, because roles are no longer clearly delineated and uncertainty arises, and also because a loss of significance may loom. When an engineer derives much of her sense of self-worth from her unique expertise and suddenly sees an intern plus AI producing something nearly equivalent in less time, that can be deeply hurtful. Vibe Coding is not only a technological shift—it is also a cultural one.

Vibe Coding cannot be introduced on the side. It requires deliberate strategic decisions and action in the following areas:

1. Clear Positioning: Do we want to promote Vibe Coding, limit it, or deploy it in a targeted way? And what role should Vibe Coding play within the organization?

2. Governance and Guardrails: Tools and platforms that may be used must be defined, as must clear rules for usage and deployment. Transparency, security, and data protection are more important than rapidly produced code.

3. Building Competencies: Upskilling developers, building AI literacy in specialist departments, and developing new role profiles must all be tackled.

4. Adapting the Operating Model: Closer collaboration between IT and specialist departments, the possible establishment of cross-functional teams, and the development of new ways of working will become unavoidable.

5. Change Management: Perhaps the most delicate task. Technical solutions can be implemented. Motivating and leading people in a transformational process is challenging. In the best case, they are active co-creators. Among many other measures, this requires a fitting narrative ("AI as a booster, not a replacement") and a proactive approach to fears and uncertainties. Involving HR and Learning & Development should therefore happen at an early stage.

Vibe Coding will not disappear. On the contrary, it will continue to accelerate. This leaves companies with three options:

1. Ignore it → leads to uncontrolled shadow development

2. Ban it → prevents innovation and will be circumvented in the long run

3. Shape it → creates the foundation for sustainable competitive advantages

The third option is the only one that moves companies forward.

Vibe Coding is not a question of tools. It is a question of strategy, organisation, and leadership.

Feel free to get in touch to discuss your requirements.