GenUI vs. Vibe Coding: Who’s Designing?

Summary: With generative UI, the AI system decides to generate an interactive element or entire product in response to a user need. Vibe coding is when users request the AI to build it.

Since Andrej Karpathy coined the term “vibe coding” in early 2025, the concept has taken over the conversation about AI and interfaces. Describe what you want; the AI builds it. There are many variations of that concept, and all of them are relevant to the design community right now, as they impact both how our teams work, and the users they design for.

But vibe coding is not generative UI (genUI). The difference is about who makes the  decision to build an interactive system or component. This distinction gets blurry in practice, and that’s exactly why it’s worth defining carefully. The line between them determines what we hold the AI accountable for: execution fidelity or design judgment.

Different Flavors of AI-Generated Interfaces

First, some definitions. The landscape of AI-generated and AI-assisted interfaces includes several overlapping concepts.