Collins Dictionary has named ‘Vibe Coding’ its 2025 word of the year.
The word was selected after lexicographers at Collins, who monitor a 24-billion-word database of media and social media, observed a massive surge in its usage,
It topped a shortlist of ten words that reflect the preoccupations and linguistic innovations of the year.
The term vibe coding was coined in February 2025 by co-founder of OpenAI Andrej Karpathy, who came up with the concept of writing software applications using descriptions instead of programming them.
It is a radical departure from traditional programming where a developer is expected to have much understanding of programming syntax and rules.
This method allows programmers, according to Karpathy, to forget that the code exists and just allow the vibes of what they wish to make to prevail.
With just a simple command such as; make me a program that creates my weekly meals, any person can develop basic applications without having a Computer Science background.
The conventional coding and vibe coding has a major difference. Traditional coding is based on comprehensive knowledge on programming languages as the developers manually write each line of code and takes a long time to debug minor errors such as a misplaced semicolon.
Vibe coding is all about the what and not the how. Users must have a clear idea of what they desire the software to accomplish, but AI performs the complicated effort of converting an idea into working code.
The startup scene is already being revolutionized with technology. Y Combinator leadership claims that startups that apply vibe coding are increasing at a rate never seen before of 10 per cent per week.
They are smaller and less capital intensive teams that are developing products at a faster rate making these companies become profitable.
Single artists on the global stage are using this technology to make projects as banal as crypto visualization applications and games that can be developed in days instead of months.
Despite its advantages, there are major limitations pinpointed by experts. Code generated by AI may contain AI hallucinations and appear to be correct, but with hidden, technical flaws.
Security is also a concern as AI could produce a code that has weaknesses, such as hard coded passwords or SQL injections.
It also has a complexity ceiling - though AI is great at standard applications, it is not good at creating complex distributed systems.
The sustainability of code in AI-generated code is also yet to be determined, which may be dangerous to large-scale projects.
As observed by Alex Beecroft, the Managing Director of Collins, the term is a perfect way of describing the development of language in relation to technology.
The choice indicates the way AI is simplifying the process of programming and redefining the way human beings engage with computers.
Other interesting words that were identified in the dictionary are clanker (a pejorative name referring to AI systems), broligarchy (the political power of tech company owners), and aura farming (building a socially media-resonant persona).