AI Wins › Replaced paid software
One developer, one AI model, and free look-alikes of Photoshop, Premiere and Excel
High verification: Independent coverage by Gizmodo, TechRepublic and Tom's Hardware, plus the public GitHub repositories. How we check stories
What happened
In early October 2026 Thomas released a family of apps under his ArtCraft project. Writing for Gizmodo on October 7, Mike Pearl reported1 that Thomas said he built seven Adobe look-alikes (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Lightroom, Acrobat Pro, After Effects and InDesign) with Claude Opus 5.5 and the Rust programming language. The Photoshop-style app is called PhotoCraft.
Days later, Jhet Borja at Tom's Hardware reported2 that Thomas followed up with Office-style apps, also made with Claude: WordCraft for documents, GridCraft for spreadsheets and DeckCraft for slides.
Anyone can read the code. On October 22, 2026, the PhotoCraft repository on GitHub3 had more than 70,000 stars and an Apache 2.0 open-source licence. The WordCraft4, GridCraft5 and DeckCraft6 repositories, created on October 7, had thousands of stars each. ArtCraft lists every app on its apps page7.
Does it actually replace Photoshop?
Not yet, and the coverage says so. When Pearl tried PhotoCraft for Gizmodo, the familiar tools were where he expected, but some, such as Free Transform, behaved unpredictably. Gizmodo also reports that Thomas wrote on Hacker News that the apps were early alpha and "not anywhere close to ready."
TechRepublic's roundup8 points to hands-on tests by AppleInsider and TechRadar, which found convincing interfaces but problems such as image-format support and missing video-editing features. TechRepublic notes that "clean-room" (built without Adobe's code) is Thomas's own description, not an independent legal finding.
Why this matters if you're choosing an AI plan
- AI coding tools can now help produce big, real software, not just small demos.
- Skill still matters: the same tools in less experienced hands won't give you a 70,000-star project.
- "Looks like" isn't "works like." Copying an interface is the easy part; reliability takes much longer.
Credits. Reporting by Mike Pearl (Gizmodo), Jhet Borja (Tom's Hardware) and TechRepublic, citing tests by AppleInsider and TechRadar. Apps and code by Brandon Thomas and ArtCraft contributors. Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Excel and other product names are trademarks of their owners; ArtCraft isn't affiliated with Adobe or Microsoft, as far as the coverage shows. Up to Speed with AI has no relationship with the people or companies named, and nothing here suggests they endorse us or any AI plan.
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