Microsoft AI CEO says vibe coding is making software easier to replace

• Vibe coding is collapsing the barrier to building apps, says Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman.
• Suleyman said anyone can now vibe code and create an app "in seconds."
• His comments come amid fears that AI could replace entire categories of software.

Mustafa Suleyman says vibe coding is rapidly lowering the barrier to building apps, a shift that could put traditional software at risk.

The Microsoft AI CEO said in an episode of the "Exponential View" podcast published Thursday that AI tools now make it possible for anyone to quickly start launching code and apps.

"It is so accessible now," said Suleyman. "You can watch a three-minute video, get spun up, launch one of these things."

"You can create an app, a web app in seconds," he added.

Suleyman said people don't need deep technical skills to get started. Instead, they can learn by experimenting, watching, and doing.

The AI can "build something that you may have thought was never possible," he said.

"Unless you push these things to their edges and explore the boundaries, you won't really understand the magic, or what they're kind of bad at."

"Everyone's got to get stuck into that motion," he added.

Suleyman also said he has vibe-coded a system that tracks the DJs he wants to see, coming concerts and festivals, and then matches those events with his travel schedule. What used to be manual work now runs automatically in a spreadsheet that updates throughout the year.

Suleyman's comments come as investors grow increasingly anxious that AI tools and agents could wipe out entire categories of software.

That fear flared this week after Anthropic said it was adding legal-focused capabilities to its Cowork assistant. The tools would allow AI to review legal documents and track compliance — work typically done by legal software.

Markets didn't take it lightly. Shares of legal-software companies in Europe and the US fell sharply on Tuesday, before the selling spread across the wider software sector and into tech.

OpenAI triggered a similar sell-off months earlier after rolling out internal AI-powered software-as-a-service tools.

Vibe coding could replace software and apps

Many of the tools now unsettling the tech sector were built using AI coding tools.

AI personal assistant OpenClaw was created with the help of AI, while Moltbook — a viral, Reddit-style forum for AI agents — was entirely vibe-coded.

Anthropic also said last month that it built its Cowork assistant using Claude.

"@claudeai wrote Cowork," Anthropic's product manager, Felix Rieseberg, wrote on X. During a livestream, Rieseberg said his team put Cowork together in just over a week, thanks to Claude.

Tech leaders and developers have also said that such a turnaround is becoming the norm.

Peter Steinberger, the developer behind OpenClaw, said in an episode of "Behind the Craft" podcast published last week that AI now lets developers "build everything."

OpenAI's chair, Bret Taylor, said in an episode of the "Big Technology Podcast" published last week that building software quickly through vibe coding will soon feel routine rather than novel.

But the real question, Taylor said, is what software still matters.

Instead of dashboards, browser forms, and traditional apps, he expects AI agents to become the dominant software interface.

"Who's making those agents is the question," he said. "Will you buy those agents off the shelf or build them yourself?"