Bain & Company has been quietly building hundreds of AI-generated software prototypes to evaluate potential acquisition targets, using a technique called “vibe coding” that lets staff recreate core product functionality through natural language prompts rather than traditional programming.
How vibecoding changes the deal playbook
Vibe coding is the practice of building software by describing what you want in plain English to a generative AI tool. The AI writes the actual code.
Bain has turned this into a professional due diligence tool. Staff have vibecoded hundreds of prototypes as part of what the firm calls “outside-in” diligence, essentially rebuilding a target company’s product from the outside to see how much of its value proposition holds up under scrutiny.
If a team of consultants armed with tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code can recreate the core functionality of a SaaS platform in days, that platform’s competitive moat might be shallower than its pitch deck suggests. Conversely, if the prototype falls apart when trying to replicate certain features, those features represent genuine defensibility worth paying a premium for.
