New tools are helping AI coding systems replicate commercial software’s features and interfaces, intensifying fears over infringement and disruption to established developers.
According to a Chosun Ilbo report, AI is now being used to recreate the functions of major commercial software, raising fresh questions about how far code, interface design and workflow logic can be copied before the result becomes an infringement. The latest example came from U.S. developer Brandon Thomas, who produced programmes resembling several Adobe applications, including Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro, before turning to Microsoft-style tools such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. He released the software free of charge, but the broader market reaction was immediate: HSBC downgraded Adobe from “Buy” to “Hold” and cut its target price to $267 from $310, citing the risk that core software features can be replicated more easily than previously assumed.
The debate has intensified because so-called AI reverse engineering is becoming more accessible. The Chosun Ilbo said the method has gained traction after the release on GitHub of REA, or Reverse Engineer Anything, a tool that connects AI coding systems with specialist reverse-engineering software. In practice, it allows a developer to inspect a programme’s structure and behaviour, extract only the most useful findings, and feed them into an AI coding assistant without passing the full analysis, reducing both token usage and cost. That makes the process more efficient than older forms of reverse engineering and different from “vibe coding”, where users simply describe the software they want and let the AI build it from scratch.
A reporter at the paper tested the workflow by using OpenAI’s Codex to reproduce parts of “Novel”, an open-source document editor. The article said REA mapped the programme’s structure in about seven seconds, after which Codex read the code and recreated formatting features, including headings, bold text and bullet points, in three minutes and three seconds. The rebuilt version matched the original in all 15 comparisons, and a further three minutes and 44 seconds were needed to create the editing interface, which also passed 14 operational checks. The reporter also found that Korean text, headings and bold formatting worked normally, suggesting the technique is not limited to English-language inputs.
The technology has drawn sharply different reactions from developers. Dutch entrepreneur Peter Levels argued that software may be entering an era in which people either create tools on demand or ask AI to do so, while Brazilian developer Fábio Akita warned that AI-generated substitutes can still contain gaps, bugs and missing functions, particularly when the original software cannot be fully examined from outside. The issue is likely to become more sensitive in South Korea, where a developer has already announced “Tangle2026”, a programme designed to read and edit Hancom’s HWP and HWPX files using AI reverse engineering tools. The developer described the project as educational, but the legal boundaries are clearer than the technical ones: South Korea’s Copyright Act allows analysis in some cases, including interoperability testing and examination of how software works, yet using that information for unauthorised purposes or reproducing protected code can still amount to infringement.
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