Startup founder spotlight: Michele Catasta, Replit

Is the era of the traditional IDE coming to an end? Join Stephanie Wong and Michele Catasta (President and Head of AI at Replit) live from Google Cloud Next '26 for a deep dive into the paradigm shift currently disrupting the software industry. From the rise of "vibe coding" to the transition of developers becoming "managers of agent swarms," Michele reveals how Replit is leveraging Google’s Gemini models to democratize software creation for the next billion builders. Key Highlights: The Death of the IDE? Why Michele argues that for the new generation of software creators, traditional IDEs are no longer the right "product surface." What is Vibe Coding? Discover the "vibe coding" philosophy—interacting with agents through natural language and feedback loops rather than staring at raw code. The "Holy Grail" of Gemini: How Replit uses Gemini’s massive context window and multimodality to allow agents to "read the user's mind" across images, videos, and complex codebases. Replit Agent + Google Cloud: A behind-the-scenes look at how Replit integrates Cloud Run, AlloyDB, and Auth to ensure every "vibe coded" app is production-ready and enterprise-secure from Day 0. Solving Technical Debt with AI: Learn how Replit uses specialized sub-agents for code review and re-architecting, ensuring that AI-generated software stays maintainable as it scales. Engineering Culture in the AI Age: How Replit dogfoods its own tools to build internal products and why they’ve replaced yearly roadmaps with high-velocity, multi-week iteration cycles. "We are all becoming managers of agents. In the future, you won't look at the code; you'll express what you want in natural language, and a swarm of agents will get the job done for you." Watch more from Google Cloud Next '26 to see how the partnership between Replit and Google Cloud is turning weekend projects into revenue-generating startups. #GoogleCloudNext #Replit #GeminiAI #VibeCoding #SoftwareEngineering #GenerativeAI #CloudRun