In-Depth
Vibe Writing
Vibe coding began as a niche AI-driven workflow where developers prompt, accept, and tweak suggestions -- letting tools like Copilot steer the process. Now it's gaining mainstream traction, shifting coding from structured logic to reactive flow. And that same approach is starting to spill into other disciplines -- writing, designing, cloud architecture -- where working by vibe may become the new normal.
The term vibe coding surfaced in early 2025, describing a shift in software development where AI tools like GitHub Copilot began doing more than completing code -- they started driving it. Developers increasingly adopted a prompt-and-react rhythm, shaping code through fluid interaction with AI instead of rigid design. As that workflow gained traction, the phrase stuck, signaling not just a new technique, but a new mindset.
The "vibe" mindset is rapidly extending beyond software development into various other fields. Vibe clouding has emerged as a term describing the intuitive use of AI to manage cloud infrastructure -- where developers spin up resources by simply describing their needs, allowing AI to handle the configuration details. In the design realm, vibe designing refers to setting the emotional tone or aesthetic of a project through natural language prompts, enabling AI to generate corresponding UI elements or layouts. Even in writing, the concept of vibe writing is gaining traction, where authors collaborate with AI to produce content that aligns with a desired tone or style, rather than following a rigid structure. These developments indicate a broader shift towards AI-assisted workflows driven by intuition and iterative collaboration across various creative and technical disciplines.
Pretty soon we'll be vibing everything. In writing, for example, IT pundits like me might use the following approach:
- Ask an AI assistant for a headline and lede about "vibe writing," a term I literally just made up five minutes ago.
- Reject the first attempt, because it implies I said "just vibe it" when I most definitely did not.
- Refine the ask: make the lede tighter, funnier, more accurate -- while hinting at cloud and design vibes, too. The AI apologizes and complies.
- Ask for a follow-up graf linking to my own article, and yes, make it in HTML, because I'm professional like that.
- Realize "vibe clouding" is already a thing, discover "vibe writing" might not even be mine to claim, and feel a little robbed -- but proceed anyway.
- Prompt the AI to write a wry transition, hate it, and write my own opening instead -- then demand the AI punch it up again.
- Finally, instruct the AI to document the entire vibe-written process inside the vibe-written piece, achieving full recursive content singularity.
If this all feels suspiciously self-referential, that's because it is. I didn't just write about vibe writing -- I vibe wrote about vibe writing while vibe writing it. Every lede, paragraph, and punchline was coaxed into place by an AI that pretends to know my voice, while I pretended not to rely on it. Consider it a proof of concept, or a cautionary tale. Either way, welcome to the vibe.
In the spirit of full vibe-writing transparency, here's a list of some actual prompts I fed to the AI while shaping this article:
- ok, let's start over from the beginning. draft a lede similar to the first one.
- ok let's try the lede again.
- i want a lede that frames the traction of "vibe coding" and hints at how ai-driven workflow will be applied to other disciplines, with a focus on writing. but along with writing i want to hint at other disciplines.
- shorten it up. describe the advent of vibe coding and how it can spread to other disciplines in much less text
- excellent, now you're there. now i want a follow-on graf that briefly describes the origin of vibe coding, what it means and resulting traction, generating your response in html code so you can link one of the terms or phrases to my article about ai-driven development getting a name: vibe coding.
- now a graf about how the term is spreading, like i said, with terms like "vibe clouding" and could spread further
- flesh that out with references to "vibe clouding" and others that you can find on the web, using your web search and reasoning abilities
- fine, but let's go all the way an inject total incursion into this, to use a coding term. have all the examples in the list detail what i actually did, prompting you for the headlines, ledes, changes and so forth
Editor's note: The editor didn't type any of the above except for "Pretty soon we'll be vibing everything" and adding the word "some" once -- and yes, I meant "recursion" not "incursion."
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.