vibe-coding<\/a>\u201d \u2014 plain-English prompting that generates functioning software. I decided to test the idea. <\/p>\nI gave the same brief to several of the leading AI tools and picked the one that felt most intuitive. In a flash, the genie was out of the bottle again \u2014 only this time, a few months later, it was older, wiser, and astonishingly capable.<\/p>\n
As my prompts improved, the system began to anticipate what I wanted, even suggesting usability features and workflow improvements. Vibe-coding, I discovered, is a combination of creativity and precision. You learn to think like a product team: ask the agent to behave like a user interface designer for visuals, a data architect for structure, or a product manager for defining minimum viable product features. <\/p>\n
I even asked it to suggest pricing models \u2014 I challenged its first recommendation and refined it until it matched both market logic and my experience.<\/p>\n
Within a week, I had a credible prototype ready to test on real users that could scan images of items, suggest where to donate, sell or recycle them, and handle any payments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vibe-coding hasn\u2019t turned me into a software developer, but it\u2019s certainly turned me into something new: an empowered problem-solver whose idea can be translated into a working product without waiting for a technical team. It\u2019s like building an architect\u2019s model before the building construction starts.<\/p>\n
The more I experimented, the more I realised this isn\u2019t just market \u201cbuzz\u201d. Vibe-coding represents a deeper shift in how value is created in software. When AI can generate and test code faster and cheaper than ever, the defensible \u201cmoat\u201d around businesses starts to move away from intellectual property and towards proprietary data, customer trust and scale.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re moving into an era of \u201ccompound engineering\u201d, where AI systems don\u2019t just help code, they embed across the entire development cycle: discovery, design, build, testing and runtime. Each cycle compounds productivity. That means turbo-charging early-career developers with AI tools, while the more experienced engineers are focusing on systems design, AI governance and scalability.<\/p>\n
Naturally, this kind of change creates turbulence \u2014 and that\u2019s showing up most visibly in the financial markets. As chair of La Fosse, the UK\u2019s largest employee-owned tech talent business, I see first-hand how our clients\u2019 needs are evolving. The conversation is no longer just about tech skills; it\u2019s about adaptability, AI fluency and data integrity. We recently surveyed 2,020 UK tech professionals on their use of AI and the results highlight the maturity gap for the people at the vanguard of change.<\/p>\n
While adoption is high, 35 per cent of workplace AI guidelines remain \u201climited\u201d or \u201cunclear\u201d. Only 36 per cent of entry-level staff and 39 per cent of intermediate employees have had formal AI training. That highlights that governance and education aren\u2019t keeping pace with enthusiasm, and wholescale workforce reskilling is now urgently needed.<\/p>\n
Throughout my career, I\u2019ve encouraged teams to \u201cwalk into the future\u201d \u2014 to imagine how political, social, economic and technological forces will shape our world in five or ten years, and to take steps today to prepare for that future. AI agents and vibe-coding are tangible proof of how fast that future is arriving.<\/p>\n
For me, these experiences haven\u2019t been about learning to code. They\u2019ve been about learning to think differently \u2014 to experiment, to test, to prototype, and to use technology as a creative partner rather than an obstacle. <\/p>\n
That mindset is going to be vital for all of us, not just for coders and technologists but for anyone navigating a rapidly changing world.<\/p>\n
As I told those students at my old school, the most valuable qualities you can cultivate have nothing to do with specific tools or job titles. They\u2019re timeless: curiosity, flexibility, emotional intelligence and the courage to keep learning. <\/p>\n
We often talk about the \u201cfuture of work\u201d as if it\u2019s something distant, waiting to be discovered. But it\u2019s already here, in every interaction between human and machine that helps us think or create in new ways. <\/p>\n
AI isn\u2019t just replacing us. It\u2019s reshaping what we\u2019re capable of. The sooner we learn to work with it \u2014 responsibly, creatively and with purpose \u2014 the better prepared we\u2019ll be for what comes next.<\/p>\n
Martin Leuw is chairman of La Fosse, a former chief executive of Iris Software and a part time vibe-coder<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I felt surprisingly nervous ahead of giving a careers talk to 160 A-level students at my old school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-507097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}