Inside the rise of vibe coding's newest crowd
· Business Insider
Boo Kok Chuon; Lee Chong Ming/Business Insider; Lewis Dickson
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What began with developers has spilled into playpens, classrooms, and retirement homes.
It's not just non-technical adults who vibe code now — it's grandparents and kids still learning to read.
Most of them told Business Insider they don't read — or understand — the code. They saw what AI tools could do, got intrigued, and started tinkering.
Vibe coding refers to the practice of using plain English to tell AI what to build. It has taken off since Andrej Karpathy last year urged developers to "fully give in to the vibes."
For Lena Hall, a senior director of developer and AI strategy at Akamai, that meant handing the mic to her 5-year-old. Using voice mode, her son built a game in about 20 minutes with OpenAI's Codex.
Others, like 13-year-old Usman Asif, started vibe coding after learning about it in a workshop. The process was bug-filled.
13-year-old student Usman Asif learned vibe coding and competed in Cursor's 24-hour hackathon in Singapore.Lee Chong Ming/Business Insider
"It kind of drove me crazy because I did not know what to do," the teen said.
"But it's like that, you know, one bug after another, then you get there," he added.
Asif has joined hackathons, built an AI sports coach, and co-created an AI-powered university guidance counselor.
At the other end of the spectrum, Lewis Dickson, a 78-year-old retiree, said he picked up vibe-coding when the tools went mainstream.
Lewis Dickson says being retired doesn't mean he can't use AI like young pros.Lewis Dickson
The tech enthusiast told Business Insider that people often think "gray hair means outdated technology skills."
"I understand where that perception comes from, but it's not always accurate," he added.