What vibe coding actually means
In February 2025, Andrej Karpathy — a founding member of OpenAI — described a new way of building software. Instead of writing code line by line, you describe what you want in plain language. The AI generates the code. He called it vibe coding: you go with the flow, describe the vibe, and the AI handles the implementation.
By 2026, the approach has moved from developer experiments to mainstream tools. Platforms like Bolt, Lovable, Replit Agent, and Cursor let anyone describe a website or web application in a text prompt and get a working result in minutes. According to recent data, 92% of US developers now use AI coding tools, and 63% of vibe coding users have no coding background at all.
For a business owner who has been told that building a website takes weeks and costs thousands, this sounds like a revolution. And in some ways, it is. But the gap between a vibe-coded demo and a business website that earns trust and generates enquiries is wider than the marketing suggests.
What you can build with vibe coding today
The tools are genuinely impressive for what they do. You can type something like “a website for a plumbing company in Prague with services, pricing, contact form, and customer reviews” and get a multi-page site with responsive layout, working navigation, images, and a contact form. This takes minutes, not weeks.
The practical uses for a business include:
Quick prototypes and landing pages. If you need to test whether a new service or offer gets interest, vibe coding can produce a landing page in an afternoon. You describe the offer, get a page, send traffic to it, and see what happens. For validation purposes, this is genuinely useful.
Internal tools and dashboards. Vibe coding works well for things that do not need to impress external customers: a simple booking interface, a quote calculator, an internal reporting page. These are tools where function matters more than polish.
First drafts for exploration. If you are not sure what your website should look like or how it should be structured, asking an AI to generate three or four variations is a fast way to explore directions. You compare the outputs, pick elements you like, and use those as a starting point.
These are real, practical applications. The problem starts when businesses treat the output as a finished product.
Where vibe coding a business website breaks down
The tools generate code and layout. They do not generate strategy, positioning, or trust. And for a business website, those are the things that actually determine whether the site works.
The copy is generic by design. When you tell an AI “a website for a plumbing company,” it writes copy that fits any plumbing company. It does not know that your company specialises in emergency repairs with a 30-minute response time, or that you have served the same neighbourhood for 15 years, or that your customers choose you because you explain the problem before fixing it. The text fills the page but does not differentiate your business.
The structure follows convention, not your customers. AI tools build standard site maps: Home, About, Services, Contact. But your customers might need to understand a complex service before they are ready to reach out. They might need a comparison page, a detailed process explanation, or a FAQ that addresses specific objections. The AI does not know your sales conversation, so it cannot structure the site around it.
Trust signals are placeholders. The AI can create a testimonial section, but it fills it with placeholder text or generic praise. It can add a logo bar, but the logos are not your real clients. It can generate a “Why choose us” section, but the reasons are the same ones every competitor could claim. For a visitor comparing options, these gaps are visible.
Forms and integrations need manual work. The AI generates a contact form, but where does the submission go? Does it connect to your CRM? Does it trigger a notification? Does it send a confirmation to the customer? Does it qualify the lead? These are the details that turn a form into a business process, and they require someone to configure and test them.
SEO is surface-level. The tools can add title tags and meta descriptions, but they cannot know which search queries bring qualified customers to your business, which pages should target which intent, or how your site compares to competitors in search results. Technical SEO, structured data, and content strategy still need human input.
Maintenance and updates are your problem. Once the vibe-coded site is live, someone has to keep it working. Update content when services change. Fix broken links. Monitor form submissions. Check that the site loads fast on mobile. Add new pages when the business grows. The AI generates the first version. It does not maintain the site for you.
The real risk: good enough that you stop looking
The biggest risk of vibe coding for business websites is not that the output is bad. It is that the output is good enough to look acceptable without being good enough to work.
A business owner generates a site, it looks modern, the layout is clean, the text fills the page. It goes live. But the copy does not reflect how the business actually talks to customers. The service pages do not answer the questions that prospects really ask. The contact form does not connect to anything. The site does not appear in search results for relevant queries.
Three months later, the site has not generated a single enquiry. The owner assumes the problem is the market, or the economy, or that websites do not work for their type of business. The real problem is that the site was never built around how their customers actually make decisions.
This is the pattern we see most often: AI shortens the creation phase but can extend the fix-it phase if nobody validates the output against real business requirements before publishing.
When vibe coding makes sense for a business
There are situations where vibe coding is the right approach:
- You need a temporary page for a campaign, event, or product test that will run for a few weeks.
- You want to explore layout and structure ideas before committing to a full website project.
- You are building an internal tool that does not need to impress external visitors.
- You have a very simple business model and can write your own specific, accurate copy.
- You understand that the output is a starting point, not a finished product.
When it does not
There are situations where vibe coding a business website creates more work than it saves:
- The website needs to generate qualified enquiries over time.
- Your service requires explanation before someone will reach out.
- You operate in a competitive market where generic positioning will not work.
- You need the site to connect with CRM, email, or internal workflows.
- You do not have time to rewrite generic copy into something specific to your business.
- You expect the site to work without ongoing maintenance.
A practical middle ground
The most effective approach we see is using vibe coding as one step in a larger process, not as the whole process.
Start by using AI to explore directions quickly. Generate three or four structural variations. Ask for headline options. Get first-draft copy for each page. This saves days of staring at a blank page.
Then do the work that AI cannot do. Define your positioning. Write copy that reflects your actual sales conversations. Add real proof: references, numbers, process details, customer quotes. Structure the site around how your customers make decisions, not around a generic template.
Then use AI again for the technical implementation. Let it generate the code, set up the responsive layout, and handle the repetitive parts. But have someone review the result against the strategy, test the forms and integrations, and verify that the site actually works on real devices.
This is not slower than pure vibe coding. It is faster than starting from scratch without AI, and it produces a result that actually serves the business.
How we use AI at iDoWeb
We use AI heavily in our work. It helps us explore options faster, draft content, generate code for routine components, and audit sites for gaps. But it does not make the decisions about what the website should say, how it should be structured, or what proof it needs to show.
The difference between a vibe-coded website and a business website that works is not the tool that built it. It is whether someone asked the right questions before the first line of code was written. If you are considering using AI to create your website and want to make sure the result actually serves your business, start with a conversation about what your customers need to see.
Related service: Web design and content strategy