REA, which claims to "replicate any software", has been put to practical testing: out of 51 public attempts, most successful cases only involved partial functionality.

Beating AI News (Dongcha) reports that independent technical author quanglee reviewed 51 public use cases of REA, finding that so-called "replication success" often only means restoring a single function. On October 12, he released his findings: 9 of the cases came from REA project contributors, all achieving their respective goals; among the other 42 independent attempts, 20 were fully completed, 16 partially completed, and 6 failed. The crux lies in the definition of "completion". Among the 20 independent successful cases, 9 targeted small games or mini-programs, 6 only restored one function of a larger software, and 5 did not even disclose the target name. One notable case is the puzzle game Untangle: after Agent analyzed its 167 KB program, it created a playable web version, with 52 out of 54 technical conclusions being fully accurate. However, developers later audited and found that 10 function and field names in the result did not come from REA’s analysis—likely because the model memorized the original’s open-source code. More complex projects require significant effort. In the reverse engineering of *Touhou Imperishable Night*, REA contributors matched 1106 out of 1107 functions to the original machine code, but the process took about two weeks and built on prior manual research. Another attempt to replicate voice input software Wispr Flow analyzed parts of its workflow (recording, transcription, text pasting) but only produced a 64-line Python script. The original’s core features—cloud-based models, context processing, real-time feedback—were not fully replicated. REA can help Agent call tools like Ghidra and IDA to analyze existing programs and rebuild partial functions. However, a commercial software’s capabilities are not limited to its installation package; server-side models, data, and complex business logic cannot be directly restored by decompiling the client.