Every CEO will be a coder. Whether they know it or not. It took one beer. I was having a drink with a friend when he described an idea, an app to help people find the right coach. Guitar coaches, fitness coaches. By the end of the first pint, I showed him a working prototype on my phone and said, “Something like this?”
He was stunned. “Is that because you know coding?” he asked. “The last time I coded was 30 years ago,” I said. “I just know how to type.” We are moving into an era where every manager will be a builder. Think about how ideas have travelled through history. First the spoken word. Then the memo. Then slides. The person who communicates their vision most clearly wins. You now describe what you want, in plain English, and AI builds it.
Here is what this looks like across the C-suite:
A CEO wants a tool that scores every inbound partnership proposal against strategic priorities, automatically, before it reaches her desk. A CMO imagines a dashboard that shows not just how ads perform, but why, pulling in competitor activity and sentiment in one view. A CHRO wants employees to flag early burnout signals anonymously, so managers get a weekly nudge instead of a quarterly survey. A CFO needs a scenario planner that stress-tests the budget against three tariff outcomes, refreshed every Monday. Each describes it. AI builds it. No slides needed.
Here is how to get started, in four steps:
- Describe the problem, not the solution. What are you trying to solve? Write it in plain language, include inputs, outputs and constraints. Don’t worry about how. That’s AI’s job.
- Build a first version in minutes. Paste your description into a vibe coding tool. You will get a working interface, basic logic and sample data almost immediately. It will not be perfect. That’s fine.
- Iterate in plain English. Tell it what is wrong, edge cases, missing data, better outputs. Each round sharpens it. You are the director. AI is building.
- Hand off, or ship it. Your prototype becomes the brief for engineers. Or ship it directly, many of these tools now handle hosting, authentication and integrations out of the box.
The memo era rewarded the best writers. The PowerPoint era rewarded the best presenters. The AI era will reward the best builders. Building now requires one thing, clarity of thought. The beer is optional!
The author is the CEO of Reliance Enterprise Intelligence (REIL) and cofounder of two AI ventures—ClayboxAI and Kampd. For feedback, please email to eteyeonai@timesofindia.com
