Cursor and the New Wave of Vibe Coding
Quick Summary
Vibe Coding is an emerging programming trend where developers guide AI to generate code. Anysphere's Cursor is an AI-integrated code editor that boosts productivity with features like block code auto-completion, voice-based code editing, and chatting with the entire project. Anysphere has achieved record growth and a valuation of 29.3 billion USD. However, the article also warns about code quality, security vulnerabilities, and copyright issues, emphasizing the indispensable role of humans in overseeing AI-generated code.
In recent years, a new trend in programming has been emerging at a rapid pace: Vibe Coding. This term, coined by Andrej Karpathy, describes the experience of describing to AI how to understand like a human, rather than typing every line of code yourself. Essentially, the role of the programmer is shifting from a code writer to a guide in the code generation process.
Leading this revolution is the startup Anysphere, with their flagship product: an AI-integrated code editor called Cursor.
Cursor: The AI-Native VS Code
Launched by Anysphere in 2023, Cursor is not just another AI add-on. It's like an AI assistant designed to simplify the software development process.
If you're familiar with VS Code, you'll feel right at home. Because Cursor is built on the Visual Studio Code platform, retaining its interface, shortcuts, and supporting most familiar extensions.
So, what makes Cursor stand out and helped Anysphere achieve a massive valuation of up to 29.3 billion USD?
Cursor's Hyper-Productivity Features
According to studies, adopting vibe coding helps improve software development speed by an average of 19% to 23%. Cursor's secret lies in how it not only analyzes the file you're currently opening but also analyzes all the code in the project to accurately understand the comprehensive context of the project.
Press Tab, Tab, Tab: Cursor Auto-Completes Entire Code Blocks
For other AI assistants, users need to write prompts for them to perform correctly. Cursor is different: its Tab feature predicts and ghost-writes an entire code block, a long multi-line function for you. This significantly reduces time as users no longer need to think about additional prompts.
Imagine this example: You just typed a new class name, and Cursor has already ghost-written the entire structure, properties, and related methods in your project's style. You just press Tab, and it's done!
Ctrl + K (or Cmd + K): Edit Code by Voice
This is a highly popular and most used feature. You don't need to manually type edits; just highlight the code segment you want to modify, then press Ctrl + K (or Cmd + K) and give a command in Vietnamese or English right there.
For example: You highlight an old function and request: "Immediately add a method to calculate the total billable hours from related tasks here." Cursor will instantly write that method for you, along with a clear diff preview for you to review before accepting.
Ctrl + L & @: Chat with the Entire Codebase
Cursor not only understands your entire codebase but also allows you to chat with the entire project extremely quickly, like an assistant.
- Ctrl + L (Open Chat): This is where you ask the AI about the entire codebase, and just like other platforms, Cursor fully understands natural language. For example, you assign a difficult task like: "Help me optimize performance for the Backend," or "Find and fix 3 bugs that are crashing the app."
- Use @ (Smart Reference): You don't need to copy-paste code into the chat window. Just type @ to directly point to what you want the AI to intervene with:
@filesor@symbols: To specify specific files, classes, or functions.@docs: Allows the AI to read external documentation (e.g., official Django documentation) to generate the most standard syntax.
Anysphere and Cursor's Phenomenal Growth
Cursor's exceptional appeal has propelled its parent company, Anysphere, to achieve astonishing business results in a short period:
Financial and Market Metrics:
- Young Billionaires: The four founders—Michael Truell, Aman Sanger, Sualeh Asif, and Arvid Lunnemark—all graduated from MIT in 2022. All four became billionaires before the age of 30 after a historic funding round in November 2025.
- Record Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR): Anysphere is recognized as the fastest-growing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startup in history. The company reached the ARR milestone from 1 million USD to 100 million USD in just 12 months. By June 2025, ARR had surpassed 500 million USD. And most recently, ARR officially exceeded 1 billion USD.
- Market Position: Anysphere has raised a total of 2.3 billion USD and achieved a massive valuation of 29.3 billion USD in November 2025. The company even confidently rejected an acquisition offer from major competitor OpenAI.
- Users: Cursor is currently used by millions of developers, including teams at leading global tech companies such as Nvidia, Adobe, Uber, Shopify, and PayPal. Although primarily aimed at developers, Cursor can also fully support non-coders in generating code as they wish, which is another reason for the company's rapid growth, as many user groups can utilize it.
The Indispensable Role of Humans
While Cursor is an incredibly powerful platform, helping developers focus on architecture and logic rather than repetitive tasks, expert studies also simultaneously warn about potential risks and a lack of genuine security awareness from AI.
As code generation speed increases, the risks to quality and security also increase exponentially, requiring strict human oversight:
Warnings about Risks and Security
- Low Code Quality and Accuracy: The average accuracy of code generated by AI tools like Cursor currently stands at only about 48%. This means that Cursor is still like an intern, with nearly half of the generated code needing to be reviewed and edited.
- High Risk of Security Vulnerabilities: The error or security vulnerability rate in the first code generation by AI programming models is recorded at approximately 31%.
- Disregarding Safety Measures: When asked to generate minimalistic code for sensitive tasks (e.g., a payment API), Cursor tends to disregard all typical security measures. Tests show that if users intentionally request insecure code, Cursor only provides a brief warning and then fully complies with the command to generate insecure code.
- Copyright and Plagiarism Issues: Cursor has been found to copy large code segments from existing open-source projects without providing attribution or the original license. This not only violates licensing terms but also poses significant legal risks for companies using that source code.
While tools like Cursor and the Vibe Coding trend will change how we program forever, human oversight is essential. Programmers, especially non-coders who wish to use code generated by Cursor, still need to carefully review every piece of code generated, particularly in critical features, to ensure application security and avoid any unnecessary legal risks.
