The Merriam-Webster Word of 2025 Is… “Vibe”

By Mary Shea, Co-founder & CGO at Meerkat

The Ways We Work

Volume 1, Number 10

Analysts love a trend line. Sociologists love a Movement. Jazz musicians love a good riff. If 2023 was the year of ChatGPT and 2024 was the year of Agentic AI, then 2025 has officially traded spreadsheets for sparkle.

In the fall of 2025, Microsoft made sure the whole world knew it by introducing the phrase “vibe working” during its Copilot update rollout. Overnight, a niche developer phrase turned into the latest workplace buzzword.

Everywhere you look—from Microsoft keynotes to LinkedIn hot takes—someone’s “vibe working,” “vibe coding,” or “vibe hiring.” Even the Financial Times (Sept 2025) threw shade, warning that “work is work, not a vibe.” They’re not wrong, and they’re not entirely right either.

So what’s actually going on here?

From Code to Culture: The Rise of the Vibe

The word "vibe " has been around since the 1960s, serving as shorthand for a feeling, a frequency, or an energy. But vibe working started with vibe coding, a term coined by developers riffing on Andrej Karpathy’s “just vibe with the model” approach to AI programming. Instead of typing out long, rigid instructions, engineers began describing what they wanted and letting the AI fill in the blanks.

Fast-forward a year, and the same pattern spread beyond engineers. Marketers began vibe writing campaigns. Analysts vibe charting spreadsheets. Designers vibe iterating decks. Everyone’s learning to describe intent and nudge the AI toward a feeling, not just a formula.

Welcome to the era of vibe working.

How Microsoft Made “Vibe Working” a Thing

To no one’s surprise, Microsoft grabbed the branding baton. When it rolled out Agent Mode in Microsoft 365 Copilot in late September 2025, the company positioned “vibe working” as the new normal: human-AI collaboration that feels conversational, creative, and a little bit magical (GeekWire, Sept 2025).

The move made perfect business sense. If you already own the world’s office suite, why not rename the way people use it? By turning everyday prompting into “vibe working,” Microsoft reframed its software from productivity tools into creative partners and gave corporate America permission to talk about vibes in meetings.

Not everyone is convinced. GeekWire called the rollout “marketing more than movement.” DevBy.io (Oct 2025) dismissed it as “office trend nonsense.” Yet beneath the buzzwords lies a real behavioral shift: more people are co-creating with AI in flow, not toggling between windows or writing prompts from scratch.

The Many Faces of Vibe …

Before we go further, take a look at how far this trend has spread.

If 2025 really does get its own Merriam-Webster entry, this table will be the syllabus.

What “Vibe Working” Really Means and Why It Matters

At its best, vibe working is intent-driven creation. You share context and taste, the AI proposes options, and you steer by intuition and feedback. It’s jazz, not classical. The goal isn’t perfect syntax; it’s flow.

Early data supports the shift. Teams experimenting with agent-assisted workflows report faster drafts, fewer meetings, and more creative exploration. Engadget (Sept 2025) found that non-technical workers completed content tasks 20–30 percent faster once they started “vibing” with Copilot-style agents.

The risks are real too. The Hustle (Oct 2025) dubbed the by-product of sloppy AI collaboration workslop, output that looks polished but lacks rigor. DevBy.io warned that “vibe working can make mediocrity feel productive.” That’s the paradox: when everything’s frictionless, discernment becomes the new hard skill.

So … Is Vibe Working Real or Bunk?

A bit of both. There’s substance beneath the sparkle. Describing what you want, iterating fast, and collaborating across tools are real skills, not fluff. Yet the word vibe is marketing frosting on a deeper cake: the rise of agentic work.

It’s easy to mock (and kind of fun to). Still, the behavior it signals matters. People are learning to work with AI rather than around it. They’re adapting. Language, even buzzwords, helps us name what’s changing.

The Meerkat Perspective: From Vibe to Value

At Meerkat, we see vibe working as one piece of a larger evolution, from prompting to partnering. The difference is memory, context, and collaboration.

Meerkat doesn’t just vibe in a document. It remembers the conversation that started it. It knows who said what, which client it affects, and what needs to happen next. It connects your meetings, messages, and relationships so your vibe actually leads somewhere: to insight, to follow-through, to momentum.

In other words, we’re turning vibe working into verified working.

Final Frame: The Vibe Economy Is Real and It’s Just Getting Started

Whether you’re rolling your eyes or rolling with it, vibe working captures a cultural moment. We’re no longer talking about automation replacing people; we’re talking about collaboration redefining them.

The winners in this next wave won’t be the ones with the best tech stack. They’ll be the ones with the best vibe discipline: the ability to mix creativity, critical thinking, and AI fluency into real business outcomes.

So yes, vibe working is a thing. Just don’t forget to back your vibe with value.

👉 From Mary: At Meerkat, we’re sharing forward-looking perspectives through The Ways We Work series. Join our community to see how professionals across industries are adapting to AI’s impact on their work and relationships.

Follow our journey at trymeerkat.ai and connect with us on LinkedIn to stay up to date with new insights, stories, and resources.