Vibe Engineering: The AI Browser That Gets Power Users

Author: Dzianis Vashchuk | Site: Medium | Published: 2026-01-27T19:48:56Z

Vibe Engineering: The AI Browser That Gets Power Users Why Silicon Valley keeps building the wrong AI tools — and what we’re doing differently There’s a conversation happening in the tech …

There’s a conversation happening in the tech industry that most people are getting wrong.When Weber Wong, founder of FLORA (a $42M creative AI platform), sat down with a16z partner Jon Lai recently, he shared an observation that stuck with me: “Silicon Valley has completely misunderstood what professional creatives actually need from AI.”Wong’s insight is simple but profound. AI tools are being built by engineers who see problems to “solve” — when professionals don’t want their problems solved. They want to express themselves. They want control. They want step-by-step power over every decision.The exact same pattern is playing out in AI browser tools. And we’re building vibebrowser.app to fix it.The Control ProblemHere’s how most AI browser tools work:You give it a promptIt does… somethingYou get… whatever it generatesThis “prompt in, magic out” approach works great for demos. It looks impressive on Twitter. But it’s fundamentally broken for anyone who needs to get real work done.Why? Because professionals don’t want magic. They want leverage.As Wong put it: “The point of movies is not to solve problems — it’s to express and have control over every single scene.”The same is true for web work. When you’re doing outreach, research, or automation:You need to see what’s happeningYou need to approve before anything is sentYou need to adjust and refineYou need repeatable workflows you can trustOne-shot AI isn’t just inconvenient — it’s actively harmful. It creates anxiety. You never know what it’s going to do. And when it makes mistakes (and it will), you have no way to catch them.The Interface LayerWong makes another point that’s worth dwelling on:“When the personal computer came out, Microsoft built an operating system on top of it. Then Adobe built a creative interface on top of that. A generative model is a computer — it takes an input and produces an output. You need an interface on top of that. WebGL is not a creative tool. Figma is a creative tool.”This is exactly right. The raw capability of an AI model is not a product. It’s infrastructure.What professionals need is an interface layer — something that gives them control, visibility, and power over the AI’s capabilities.For browser automation, that means:Seeing every step the AI is takingApproving actions before they executeBuilding workflows that are repeatable and trustworthyChoosing your own AI model instead of being locked into one vendorBuilt for Power Users, By Power UsersWong’s origin story resonates with us. He left venture capital because he realized he wouldn’t back himself — he didn’t have a unique worldview yet. So he went to art school, made experimental AI installations, and discovered what professionals actually need.We came to Vibe Browser the same way. Not from thinking “how can we automate browsing?” but from actually doing the work — outreach, research, data entry — and feeling the pain of existing tools.The result is a fundamentally different approach:Control, not magic. You see every action. You approve every message. Nothing happens without your say-so.Any AI model. Use GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek. Switch anytime. No vendor lock-in.Privacy first. 100% local with Gemini Nano. Your data never leaves your device. TEE hosted GenAI LLM.Works on the real web. LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, Gmail — anywhere you browse. No APIs needed.The Value of Taste Goes UpHere’s the counterintuitive truth Wong articulates about AI tools:“In general, the value of rote manual creative labor will go down, but the value of taste will actually go up. If you have great taste, it suddenly becomes super easy to scale that.”The same is true for browser automation. AI doesn’t replace power users — it amplifies them.When we put Vibe Browser in the hands of skilled professionals, they do incredible work:Outreach specialists craft personalized messages at 10x the speedResearchers synthesize information from dozens of sources in minutesOperations teams automate tedious workflows while maintaining quality controlThe main bottleneck for power users has always been time — how much they can accomplish in a day. Vibe Browser extends their reach without taking away their judgment.What We’re BuildingWe’re not building “the AI that browses for you.” We’re building the co-pilot that works alongside you.The difference matters. A co-pilot:Assists but doesn’t take overShows its workAsks for approval on important decisionsLets you course-correct in real-timeGets better as it learns your preferencesThis is what professional tools look like. Not “prompt and pray” — but workflows you can trust.The Future Belongs to Those with TasteWong predicts that creative teams will restructure around AI tools — with value accruing to those who have great taste and judgment, not those who can execute rote tasks fastest.We believe the same will happen with browser work. The professionals who learn to leverage AI tools thoughtfully — maintaining control while multiplying their output — will dramatically outperform those who either:Resist AI entirelyHand over control to unpredictable automationVibe Browser is built for that middle ground: maximum leverage with maximum control.About Vibe BrowserVibe Browser (vibebrowser.app) is an AI-powered browser co-pilot that automates web tasks using natural language. Works with any AI model, runs locally for privacy, and keeps you in control of every action. Built by the team who actually does the work.Inspired by the a16z Speedrun conversation between Weber Wong (FLORA) and Jon Lai.