Ant Group’s new “vibe coding” artificial intelligence app LingGuang has overwhelmed servers after user downloads surpassed 1 million in just four days, hitting the milestone faster than OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Sora, according to the Chinese fintech giant.
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The app’s innovative functionality of generating applications in response to users’ text prompts was temporarily suspended on Thursday evening, with the company attributing the issue to excessive usage in a post on Weibo.
As of Saturday, LingGuang occupied the top spot on Apple’s mainland China App Store for free utilities apps and seventh overall for free apps. “This milestone means LingGuang is a key player worth following in the quickly evolving global AI race,” the company said.
Ant Group is an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the Post.
Vibe coding – which allows amateur programmers to create custom software applications – has become one of the most popular applications of generative AI globally.
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US-based vibe coding leader Replit, for example, crossed US$100 million in annual recurring revenue in June, up from just US$10 million at the end of 2024.
While Replit and other vibe coding tools use AI to generate code, Ant Group’s LingGuang directly generates the app that users ask for, which provides every user “their own personal AI developer”, according to the company.