As a designer, I’ve always believed that turning my ideas into reality requires extensive coding skills. The thought of learning multiple programming languages seemed daunting, and I often felt limited in bringing my creative concepts to life. However, the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has dramatically shifted this landscape, empowering designers like me to transform ideas into functional applications without writing a single line of code.

Vibe Coding: A New Way to Build Without Code

Recently, I started learning about vibe-coding, a term popularized by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy. It describes how today’s AI tools allow non-technical people to create apps just by describing what they want. You don’t need to write code yourself — just prompt the AI, tweak outputs, and assemble the pieces. As Karpathy put it:

“It’s not really coding. I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy-paste stuff, and it mostly works.”

This hit home for me. I always thought coding would be a massive barrier, but now I can finally build my own tools — without ever becoming a full-on engineer.

How I Built My Own App Using AI

I recently dove deep into vibe-coding, especially using Cursor AI, and let me tell you — it felt like a personal milestone. After five years in design, I finally built something functional: Flits, an app I use daily to help me learn Dutch with Tinder-like flashcards.

Not only does it assist in my language learning, but it also lets me experiment with new skills. Even though I started as a no-code designer, I now understand a bit of coding as a by product of using AI efficiently. And honestly? That feels amazing.

How I Built My Own App Using AI

Of course, vibe-coding isn’t perfect. Using high-end models like Claude can get expensive fast — My friend racked up a €90 bill in February alone due to AI hallucinations forcing him to regenerate outputs multiple times, and the same happened to me. The bigger your codebase gets, the more unpredictable and costly AI becomes.

Right now, vibecoding feels like an amazing tool for prototyping, creating interactive elements, and automating small workflows. But for full-scale production? It still has limitations, especially for designers coming from a no-code or low-code background. If you already know how to code, A.I. is a powerful assistant. If you don’t, it’s a fun yet unpredictable playground.

How I Built My Own App Using AI

As designers, our value isn’t just in pushing pixels or writing perfect code — it’s in identifying problems worth solving and designing experiences that matter. With AI handling the technical execution, our focus shifts to strategy, creativity, and user experience.

In a world where software can be built through conversations with AI, having the right ideas is becoming more valuable than knowing how to code.

How I Built My Own App Using AI

Despite its quirks, AI is changing the way we build. No longer do designers need to rely solely on engineers to prototype interactive elements, animations, or even full-blown apps

“It’s not really coding. I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy-paste stuff, and it mostly works.”

Does this mean coders are obsolete? Absolutely not. But it does mean that designers who understand how to work with AI — rather than fight against it — will be the ones shaping the future. And as someone who never thought they’d be writing any code, I can confidently say: it’s just the beginning.

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