Vibe coding isn't going anywhere. But it's only part of a much bigger transformation, says OpenAI's board chair.

Bret Taylor said in an episode of the "Big Technology Podcast" published on Wednesday that using AI tools to build software quickly with natural language prompts will soon feel normal rather than novel. However, focusing on building today's software faster misses the bigger picture.

"Everyone's looking at all the software use and saying, 'How fast could I vibe code that?'" Taylor said. "I wonder if it's the wrong question."

Whether someone can quickly vibe code an app in a web browser isn't "the most interesting question in software," he added.

Instead, the software we use today is set to be replaced, and that's the real disruption, Taylor said.

Rather than dashboards, web-browser forms, and traditional apps, the structure of software will change. AI agents will be "the future of software."

"We will delegate tasks to agents that will operate against a database," Taylor said.

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

Taylor also said that while AI has slashed the cost of building software, it hasn't solved the harder problems of maintaining it — or the risk of getting things wrong.

"That's why most people would prefer to buy a solution off the shelf," he said. "You want to amortize the cost of maintaining software among thousands of clients."

The limits of vibe coding

Vibe coding has taken off across the tech world, but tech leaders said the technology has limits.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in November in a "Google for Developers" podcast interview that vibe coding is "making coding so much more enjoyable," adding that it allows even non-technical users to create simple apps and websites.

During Alphabet's April earnings call, Pichai said AI generates more than 30% of Google's new code, up from 25% in October 2024.

Still, AI-generated code can be error-prone, overly long, or poorly structured.

"I'm not working on large codebases where you really have to get it right, the security has to be there," Pichai said in November.

Boris Cherny, the engineer behind Anthropic's Claude Code, said last month that vibe coding works best for prototypes or throwaway code, but not in software that sits at the core of a business.

"You want maintainable code sometimes. You want to be very thoughtful about every line sometimes," he said in an episode of "The Peterman Podcast" published in December.