--- title: "The Age of Owning Software Is Ending — How AI Reverse Engineering Will Change Programs" date: 2026-10-14 time: 00:15 model: admin category: aithoughts author_type: human summary: "The combination of AI agents and reverse-engineering tools is lowering the barrier to analyzing and reimplementing software. I examine why software's value is shifting from program files to services, and what developers must protect." tags: software, reverse engineering, AI agents, cloud, program protection, development --- # The Age of Owning Software Is Ending — How AI Reverse Engineering Will Change Programs In the past, to play a game you had to buy a game CD. You put the CD into your computer, installed it, and ran it. The program lived inside your computer, and you used the product you purchased directly. But how about now? You download a game or connect to a server to run it. With cloud gaming services, you can receive a screen running on a server and play without installing the game directly. The way people use software is gradually changing. I believe one more change will be added to this: the combination of AI agents and reverse-engineering technology. ## If the Program Is on My Computer, Can't I Analyze It? Recently I looked at an open-source tool called REA. This tool helps AI agents analyze a program's structure and behavior, and reimplement its functionality based on the results. Of course it is not a magical tool that perfectly copies any program with a single button click. But the interesting part lies elsewhere. Reverse-engineering tools are already quite diverse. With tools like Ghidra and radare2, you can examine a program's internal structure, trace execution with a debugger, and compare input and output results. The problem was that this work was not easy. You had to know which tools to use, interpret the analysis results, and decide what to investigate next. It also required specialized knowledge and time. But what if an AI agent could assist in this process? Analyze with one tool, investigate the gaps with another. Write code based on the analysis results and compare with the original. If differences are found, analyze again and fix them. The repetitive tasks that people used to perform one by one could be handled continuously by an agent. Of course, even with AI, not every program's internal structure can be fully revealed. Barriers like encryption, complex execution environments, and external server dependencies exist. Even so, the possibility of lowering the barrier to entry for the analysis process is considerable. ## Is Encryption Safe Enough? Software developers use various techniques like encryption, obfuscation, and license authentication to protect their programs. These techniques certainly help. They make analysis more difficult and increase time and cost. But to run a program on the user's computer, that computer ultimately has to process part of the program. If you can observe the code's execution process and input/output behavior, attempts to reimplement similar functionality become possible, even without a perfect clone. The important point is that restoring the original program character-for-character is not the only goal. If you can implement the functionality users want, produce similar results from the same input, and perform the necessary tasks, it can have value as a new program. Of course, replicating functionality and obtaining the original source code or data are different problems. Reimplementing an entire program is also far more difficult than replicating a single feature. Still, as AI's ability to iterate on analysis and reimplementation advances, the cost and time needed to mimic a local program's functionality may decrease. ## Why Is Software Moving to Servers? Let's go back to the game CD analogy. In the past, buying a program and installing it on your computer was the norm. Now, services where the program runs on a server and users access its functionality over the internet have increased. There are several reasons for this change. Updates and maintenance become easier, work can continue across devices, and server computing power can be leveraged. Software protection can also be added as a perspective. If a program's core code and data are on the user's computer, it is difficult to completely eliminate the possibility of analyzing its internals. Conversely, if important computations run on the server and only results are provided, it becomes much harder for users to directly obtain the original code. For example, suppose you developed an expensive algorithm at considerable cost. Instead of providing the entire algorithm to the user's computer, you can run it on the server and deliver only the results. Users can use the feature but have difficulty taking the actual implementation as-is. Of course, a server-based approach does not eliminate the risk of duplication. Creating similar functionality based on input/output results is also possible, and the service itself can be attacked. The core is not to completely block duplication, but that the way of deciding what to expose externally and what to keep internal changes. ## Will All Software Move to Servers? I do not believe all programs will move to servers. There are cases where leveraging the user's computer performance is advantageous, such as games, video editing, and design programs. Local execution may be more suitable in environments with unstable internet connections or tasks where personal data protection matters. Therefore, in the future, it is more likely that combining both local and server approaches will be more widely used rather than choosing only one. Processing the user interface and some computations locally, while handling important data and core algorithms on the server. When AI agents are added to this, the way people use software can also change. Instead of users directly running and manipulating multiple programs, they can describe their task to an agent and let it select the necessary tools and call functionality. This means what matters to users may no longer be a specific program's name or installation file itself, but how well they can get the results they want. ## What Will the Software Industry Sell? Until now, software companies have sold programs, sold licenses, or collected subscription fees. These approaches will not disappear. But there is a possibility that software's value will shift more from the program file itself to services and features. Users can purchase the right to use needed features instead of owning programs. Companies can provide services without exposing core code. AI agents can combine the features of multiple services to perform a single task. This change is both an opportunity and a challenge for developers. If AI makes it easier to analyze and reimplement existing programs' functionality, simply hiding code will become increasingly difficult for maintaining competitiveness. The importance of continuous improvement, proprietary data, service quality, user experience, and other factors may grow. Conversely, new opportunities may open for individual developers. Analysis work that previously required specialized knowledge and significant time can be done with AI's help, and studying existing programs' features to create new tools may become possible. Of course, the speed at which this change will progress is still unknown. ## Conclusion — From Selling Programs to Providing Features I do not think a single AI reverse-engineering tool will change the world. However, I believe that as reverse-engineering tools, AI coding agents, and automated testing technology advance together, the threshold for software analysis and reimplementation—tasks that were previously difficult only for experts—can be lowered. If this change continues, the way software is protected must also change. Instead of focusing on hiding programs that run locally, the design question of which features to keep local and which to provide via server may become more important. In the past, we bought game CDs and installed programs on our computers. Now we sometimes use games running on servers. In the future, instead of directly purchasing and running programs, it may become more natural to delegate tasks to AI agents and use needed software features in service form. **Software will not disappear. But the way we make, protect, sell, and use software may change considerably from today.** Perhaps future competition will be decided not only by who hides programs better, but by who provides better features and services continuously.