Categories: Business & Economy

You’re about to hear a lot more about “vibes” at work

It all started with coding. Generative AI’s ability to write code spelled the end of traditional software development, and companies wanted “vibe” coders. Big Tech executives have praised vibration this year: Sundar Pichai codes a web page, Mark Zuckerberg says AI is coming for mid-level engineering jobs, and Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski says he became an amateur coder thanks to vibrational coding. Startups claw their way into existence by coding the vibe.

Today, the business world is more vibrant. A small number of companies are seeking candidates for roles such as “Vibe Growth Manager,” tasked with experimenting with AI and creating marketing prototypes more quickly. Last month, Microsoft rolled out what it calls “dynamic working,” which involves using agent tools in Excel and Word that can generate documents and spreadsheets. It allows people without extensive spreadsheet knowledge to “speak Excel” or “vibe write” in Word by generating, refining, and asking questions of the author as they go. Mea’s AI app now has a “vibes” feed for AI-generated videos, and Sora’s AI video platform is giving rise to what some call “vibes” – no longer traditional influencer content, but a new type of influence created by synthetic AI images and a few clicks.

Welcome to vibening, where much of white-collar work is presented as simple vibrations. The term is shorthand for using generative AI to do the tedious and arduous parts of a project, but it also conveys the idea that work is fluid, improvisational, and easy. Vibing is a kind of version of Generation Z hyggeslang that was once reserved for relaxing with friends or describing a date that went well and has now seeped into corporate speech. Managers regularly conduct “mood checks” with their direct reports. Some companies have toyed with a “Chief Vibe Officer” title. Smirnoff announced Troye Sivan in the role as part of a promotional partnership last year, and software company Atlassian has named a rotating CVO in a bid to strengthen ties between the teams.

But vibrational work is still work. Working with AI and doing it well takes experimentation and expertise. The rise of discussions about workplace atmosphere may obscure the value of mastering concepts and skills, or the term could be a signal of a company looking for workers who are energetic and willing to experiment. If this is an attempt by companies and leaders to show that they are open to AI and fashion, the imprecise language and experimentation can be a source of confusion. “Everyone can have a different interpretation of ambiance,” says Ben Armstrong, executive director of MIT’s Industrial Performance Center. “One person’s good vibe can be another person’s bad vibe.”

So what happens when the vibrations are bad?

It’s no surprise to see the idea of ambient work gaining traction, as Gen Z sees work settings with blurrier lines. From lazy girl jobs to quiet departures, there is less formality in the workplace, and young people are less interested in job loyalty and less dependent on the 9-to-5 job. Workers feel disengaged by the company culture, so a rebrand to the softer idea of vibe could be an attempt to attract workers to a less rigid workplace. “I imagine for this particular demographic it’s very appealing: The work is more about vibing than analyzing, synthesizing, or reporting, which to me doesn’t seem particularly artistic, creative, collaborative, or beautiful,” says Emily DeJeu, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. But the term “hides how much of a job it is,” DeJeu says. If leaders label work as a “vibe,” it can weaken the expertise needed to get a job done. This could become a form of exploitation if bosses rely on workers’ mastery of skills while simultaneously negating the value of the work done alongside AI. DeJeu compares vibe coding or working to jazz. A performance may be largely improvised and seem effortless to the listener, but that on-the-spot vibe only works because the musicians have spent years mastering the theory before taking steps to screw it up. “Work is work, and the work it takes to gain expertise is laborious,” she says. The idea that you can vibe and “you don’t have to spend all this time and it’s not hard, is pretty laughable in my opinion.”

Working on the atmosphere is always work.

Vibing was not the miracle solution for coding certain expected things. There has been a frenzy for AI-generated code, and Andrej Karpathy of OpenAI coined the process as atmosphere coding. The concept has propelled the software developer role into a new era: the nature of the work done by many has shifted from writing code to a focus on reviewing AI-generated code for bugs, and coders aren’t necessarily saving time.

The trend has caught on, and employers are hungry for employees who know how to use AI. They are eager to save money and benefit from the productivity gains touted by AI evangelists. Even though most companies don’t train their employees to use AI, they want workers who learn it: 71% of business leaders say they would take a less experienced job seeker with AI skills over a more experienced worker who doesn’t know how to use AI, according to a 2024 Microsoft report. Two-thirds say they wouldn’t hire someone without AI knowledge. But less than a third of workers have received corporate training to use AI, according to a survey of workers conducted by Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit focused on workforce transformation. There is a big gap between what companies want in terms of AI and how they are able to deliver it and train their workers.

To cope, workers themselves have turned to AI. Learning about technology often happens bottom-up from workers rather than top-down through training. Workers experiment in ways that are not always followed, so best practices are developed just as the limits of technology are discovered. “Because a mood is so open to interpretation, it’s so difficult to measure what the outcome of these different tasks might be,” says Armstrong. We live in a time similar to the early days of the Internet, he says, when people were experimenting and developing different types of web interfaces. With AI tools, people “determine when they will be effective, when they will be reliable.” All this vibration can create very different processes with varying degrees of success that also prove difficult to replicate.

When people work too hard, when they use generative AI without thinking, they can produce piles of work, or carefully prepared presentations and memos, often long but lacking in useful information. “As you have an idea, you also have to have your strategy and your objectives, and then you have to use AI to help you uncover the idea,” explains Emilie DiFranco, vice president of marketing at Marketri. DiFranco says AI is useful for marketers because it can review and consolidate data, but relying too heavily on AI without the right purpose for a marketing strategy in mind could become complicated. “I’m a little worried about losing the human aspect of creating that initial strategy and goals,” she says. Marketers shouldn’t just be creating a vibe, but making sure there’s research, making sure you have those foundational pieces before you commit to AI to start helping you build the plan.

Vibing is all the rage right now. As companies and executives rush to capitalize on this idea, it could become grating. But work is work, and trying to put a fun spin on how we talk about it or incorporate generative AI tools doesn’t mean employers aren’t demanding a lot from their workers.

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, covering the technology industry. She writes about the biggest companies and technology trends.