AI JUST MADE BUILDING AN ADOBE ALTERNATIVE A LOT CHEAPER One developer reportedly used Claude Opus 5.5 and Rust to build seven open-source creative apps covering Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects and more. They're not production-ready replacements yet. Professional compatibility, rendering quality and reliability still matter. But the bigger story isn't Adobe losing seven product categories overnight. It's what happens when the cost of building complex software drops dramatically. For years, established software companies benefited from the enormous engineering investment required to compete with them. AI is starting to weaken that barrier. The real competitive advantage may shift from who can afford to build the software to who can make it reliable, earn user trust and build the strongest ecosystem. That's a much more interesting threat to Adobe than another free Photoshop clone.