A Weekend, Seven Apps, One Big Claim

Last weekend, Atlanta developer Brandon Thomas released ArtCraft. It is a suite of seven free, open-source apps that copy the look and tools of Adobe’s creative software. Thomas says he built them with Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 and the Rust programming language. He announced the project on Reddit and declared that “software is over.”

ArtCraft is the clearest example yet of a new trend. This article looks at what was built, how well it works, the legal questions, and what AI software clones could mean for Office 365, SAP, and other paid platforms. The rise of AI software clones raises one big question. What protects paid software when copying gets cheap?