Opening the door — without handing over the keys
Guido van Rossum, who created Python, a popular programming language used by millions of developers, says he frequently turns to vibe coding in GitHub Copilot and VS Code in his role as a distinguished engineer at Microsoft, where he’s working on bolstering memory in AI agents. But he sees tools as assistants, not replacements.
“With the help of a coding agent, I feel more productive, but it’s more like having an electric saw instead of a hand saw than like having a robot that can build me a chair or a cabinet or something,” van Rossum says. “I still have to work on the implementation, but the AI help means that trying different things or changing my mind is easier.”
Vibe coding unlocks creativity and speed, “but it really only delivers production value when paired with rigorous review, security and developer judgment,” says GitHub Chief Product Officer Mario Rodriguez. “At GitHub, we’re enabling collaborative, secure and high-quality software creation with Copilot coding agent, which keeps humans at the center while making sure AI augments rather than replaces engineering practices.”
Rodriguez says understanding, testing and verifying code “will remain essential skills — debatably now more than ever — when building with AI in production environments.”
For Ryan Cunningham, who leads Power Platform at Microsoft, AI’s support through new approaches such as vibe coding represents a long-awaited democratization of software creation.
“There’s this inherent tension in this idea of who has access to tech,” Cunningham says. “When is it OK to not be serious about it and to be creative and exploratory? And when is it OK to get serious and build more advanced things? That’s what’s part of why people are talking so much about this idea, because it kind of touches this nerve in a lot of different directions.”
Until now, there was always “a lot of people and expertise and tech in between a person with a need and instructions to computers,” he says. With AI bridging that gap through conversation instead of code, people in diverse roles across an organization can now get involved in projects and help shape tech solutions earlier — and in new ways.
“The lines are really blurring between people who solve problems for the business and people who write software, who used to be very different types of humans,” Cunningham says. “Those groups are really coming together.”
Magic for any age, safety for every stage
Microsoft has been careful to design tools that are safe for those without computer science degrees to experiment with building software, Cunningham says.
“The nice thing in Power Platform is you’re kind of doing it in a sandbox,” he says. “When you push it out to your company, it’s going to happen in the context of our secure boundary. It’s going to run on a platform that is secure and scalable, and all that stuff is handled for you.”
And one “cool thing” about Spark, Fowler says, is that the AI-powered tool “gives you a shareable URL so you can share with friends, and they can log into your app, they can play with it. It runs, maintains and hosts your app on the internet securely.”
Cunningham, Fowler and Silver all vibe code with their children on personal projects, too, that don’t require enterprise-grade scrutiny. They’ve built fun games as well as apps that have helped their kids manage a summertime lemonade stand, track the higher homework load that came with moving up to middle school, or even conquer nightmares.
“Those are the kinds of things you can do in 20 minutes,” Cunningham says. “The ability to tap into that root of exploratory creativity is actually really powerful. It’s magical for anybody of any age.”
For Silver, this new mindset of partnering with AI to build apps is the culmination of a mission she’s been championing for 24 years.
“What I’ve spent my career at Microsoft doing is trying to make it so that more people can create with technology,” she says. “Vibe coding is actually allowing more people to create with technology.”
Illustrations created by Makeshift. Story published on Nov. 13, 2025.
