Just a few months ago, it felt like software development was having an identity crisis. Twitter threads, LinkedIn posts, and YouTube thumbnails screamed the same message: “You don’t need to code anymore.” Just prompt. Just vibe. Build a Amazon clone before your tea gets cold. As a developer and founder, I watched this unfold with equal parts curiosity and skepticism.
March was peak of this madness. If you were writing real code instead of pasting prompts into an AI based IDE or in Vibe coding tool, you almost felt old-school. Influencers declared that engineers were on borrowed time 🤪. Vibe coding wasn’t just a tool, it was positioned as a replacement for skill, experience, and, frankly, thinking. And for a small moment, the hype was so loud that even experienced developers wondered if something fundamental had shifted, or they thought so.
Then came the ultimate silence.
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The First AI Coding Bubble
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: vibe coding didn’t disappear because AI failed but It faded because expectations were wildly disconnected from reality. Interest in “vibe coding” style tools dropped sharply within months of the initial surge, with traffic and engagement falling noticeably after April . That kind of drop does not happen when a tool fundamentally replaces a profession.
What actually happened on the ground was far less glamorous. Founders and developers who tried building real products with prompt-only workflows ran into the same old problems: unclear requirements, broken logic, unmaintainable code, and systems that worked in demos ( some part of it ) but failed miserably in production.
AI could write code, yes. But it could not understand why the system existed.
From “10x Developer” to Debugging Assistant
Most developers today do use AI. Surveys show that nearly half of professional developers rely on AI tools daily, mainly for boilerplate, refactoring, or understanding unfamiliar codebases . That’s not replacement. That’s assistance.
And here’s the part influencers rarely mention: multiple studies found that while developers felt more productive with AI, tasks often took longer once debugging and validation were included . Anyone who has tried to ship AI-generated code without reading it knows this pain. You don’t save time if you spend hours fixing confident mistakes.
This is where the “duct-tape code” problem becomes real. AI can assemble something fast, but speed without structure creates technical debt at an alarming rate.
Founders Learned This the Hard Way
The vibe coding hype also produced casualties. Builder.ai, once valued as an AI-powered development company, collapsed after revelations that much of its “AI coding” was exaggerated or nonexistent . That moment quietly reset the conversation. Investors stopped asking “Can AI build this?” and started asking “Who maintains this?”
That shift matters. Building software is not about generating files. It is about ownership, iteration, scale, and accountability. AI does not wake up at 3 a.m. when production breaks.
So What Survived the Hype?
AI is not gone. Vibe coding as a replacement for engineering is. What remains is something far more useful and far less sexy: AI as a collaborator.
From a founder’s perspective, this is actually good news. Teams that understand architecture, trade-offs, and long-term maintenance now have leverage. AI accelerates the boring parts and exposes the weak parts of your thinking faster. It rewards clarity and punishes laziness.
The Real Takeaway
The first AI coding bubble didn’t burst because AI was useless. It burst because we tried to skip fundamentals. Code still needs intent. Products still need judgment. Systems still need humans who understand consequences.
Vibe coding promised a shortcut around experience. Reality reminded us why experience exists.
And that’s probably the healthiest correction the industry could have had.
