Overview
- Collins defines the term as using artificial intelligence to turn natural‑language prompts into computer code, letting users describe outcomes instead of writing syntax.
- The phrase, coined by Andrej Karpathy in February 2025, rose sharply in the 24‑billion‑word Collins Corpus and topped a tech‑heavy shortlist that included “clanker” and “aura farming.”
- Industry figures cited in coverage include Microsoft saying AI writes up to 30% of its code and Google reporting that more than a quarter of new code is AI‑generated.
- Mainstream tooling is embracing the workflow, with new vibe‑coding features and agents from vendors such as JetBrains, AWS and Salesforce.
- Reports also highlight risks such as hallucinated or insecure code and challenges with complex systems, prompting calls for disciplined testing, security review and governance.