AI vibe coding tools may be going from boom to bust, new data shows. Here's why. (www.businessinsider.com)

Barclays analysts report a marked slowdown in traffic to several buzzy “vibe coding” services after a summer peak, suggesting the early boom may be cooling. Using site metrics and Google Trends, Barclays flagged steep drops for names like Lovable (down ~40% from its June peak), Vercel’s v0 (visits down ~64% since May), Bolt.new (down ~27%), and smaller declines at Replit. The slump follows a period of rapid hype and headline ARR gains — often driven by month-to-month subscribers — and coincides with product changes like Vercel’s bot-mitigation measures that may have further reduced automated traffic. The decline matters because it exposes structural risks in the business model: high churn, concentrated “inference whale” usage that balloons backend AI inference costs, and shaky ARR durability if revenue is driven by transient users. Startups are responding with product updates and stickier subscriptions, but users still hit the “last 5%” problem where generated code requires manual cleanup, limiting mass-market adoption. Legacy platforms (Wix, GoDaddy) are investing, so vibe coding won’t disappear — but expect a maturing phase where economic unit economics, retention strategies, and cost controls determine which players scale beyond early AI-native adopters.