AI Video Editing – Top 5 Tools We Recommend!

AI tools are transforming all aspects of the digital world and that includes video creation.

There’s everything from AI video editors that can completely revolutionize your video editing to AI video generators that can build out your content to AI video enhancers which automatically improve your videos!

Important: When available, we use affiliate links and may earn a commission!

With so many advances in AI and new tools popping up, it can be difficult to keep up. So we’ll share the top AI video creator tools that are shaking up the scene right now.

These awesome AI Video Editing tools aren’t just changing the game, they’re reinventing it!

Say goodbye to tedious tasks and hello to these AI editing tools that’ll help you create engaging video content quicker and easier.

If you’re wondering how to edit videos faster & easier – this is for you.

Let’s dive in.

AI Video Editing Tool #1: Descript

Descript is an amazing tool for video editing, podcasting, screen recording and transcribing. There are tons of cool AI tools built-in, but we’ll just cover a couple of our favorites.

Descript App Website Homepage
One tool for video editing, transcribing, and audio processing

Automatic Transcription

Once you go ahead and upload your video or audio file in a new project, Descript will automatically transcribe the entire clip for you.

Then you can edit video or audio files by editing that transcription like a Google doc.  

Let’s say you want to remove a bad take, simply highlight the text and hit Delete on the keyboard. That section has then been removed from your project.

Inside Descript App with transcription on the left and video preview on the right
Descript automatically transcribes when you add your video or audio in a project

Likewise you can use this tool to move sections around. Select the text, Cut and then Paste it in the desired location and that chunk has now been moved.

This makes your editing really fast! But it also makes editing a lot more accessible. You don’t need refined video editing skills, you just need to be able to edit a document to create awesome videos using the Descript video editor.

Generate Captions

Once the transcript has been created, you can also add subtitles or captions to your video with the click of a button.

Go to the T icon and select Captions. Then the captions will appear on screen in the preview area when you play your video.

The captions are completely customizable. You can adjust the size, font and color of the captions as well as move them around.

Transcription on the left side and Video Preview with caption on the right side in Descript
The T icon on the top of the screen enables Captions

Audio Enhancement

There’s an audio tool in Descript called Studio Sound that does an amazing job of removing background noise and making your audio sound great.

In the right menu bar, simply toggle on Studio Sound. It will then process your audio within a matter of minutes.

We tested this tool with a video clip Justin filmed in a really noisy location (beside a busy road) and it removed ALL the background noise and adjusted Justin’s volume levels so he sounded much clearer.

This is an awesome tool to have access to for when you need to fix some not-so-great audio.

Studio Sound under Audio Effects on the right sidebar in Descript
Enhance or remove background noise by turning Studio Sound on

Descript Pricing

There are a few different pricing options when it comes to Descript:

  • Free: This lets you create videos up to 720p and gives you one watermark free video export per month.
  • Creator – $12/month: Can create videos up to 4k with unlimited video exports.
  • Pro – $24/month: Same as Creator plus unlimited use of all other features.

It’s awesome that you can jump into Descript for free to test it out, but we’d recommend jumping on a paid plan to access all the functionalities.

Descript Pricing Plan with Free, Creator, Pro and Enterprise tiers
Easily test Descript out by getting on their Free Plan

AI Video Editing Tool #2: Gling

Gling is a tool we’re huge fans of right now. It does have some overlap with Descript – there aren’t as many features and controls as Descript, but it does have one amazing standout feature.

After you’ve created a free account, you can drag and drop your video file into Gling. Then just like Descript, it will transcribe your video file.

Gling Website with 'Creator, get your time back' tagline
Create a Free account and test out Gling’s editing features

Again like Descript, you have the option to automatically remove any silences (which is an awesome feature). But the real standout tool here is that you can ask Gling to remove any bad takes from your video footage.

Basically, Gling analyzes your transcript and if it sees that you’re saying the same thing multiple times trying to nail the perfect take (as Justin tends to do when he’s filming!) it will suggest edits based on which parts it thinks should be removed.

This AI video editor can save you a ton of time!

Pop-up window for a new Untitled Project where you can toggle to cut Silences and Bad takes for your project in Gling
When you import your video, you can toggle to automatically remove Silences or Bad takes from your project

You can press play to watch through and see what the suggested edits sound like. You can edit the suggestions either extending or removing the suggested edits. So it’s really flexible and it’s worked really well in all of our tests.

Once you’re done with the edit in Gling, go to Export and you’ll see that you can export as a project file – keeping those edits intact. You can export to Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere, or you can export a video file as well.

PRO TIP: This feature is available in Descript as well.

Grayed out texts that are suggested to be trimmed off in the video transcription in Gling
Suggested parts to remove are grayed out which you can toggle on and off

So while a lot of the functionality is available in Descript, the biggest difference is the ability to perform an edit using AI based on what’s being said in the video. This is super powerful and allows you to create high quality videos much quicker.

Gling Pricing

It’s free to sign up and the first video you create in Gling is totally free.

After that first video, you can jump on a subscription which is $15/month. This allows you to process up to 10 hours of footage per month.

If you go over those 10 hours, you’ll be charged $0.04 per minute (this is equivalent to $2 per hour).

PRO TIP: If you link your Gling account with your YouTube channel and have over 100 subscribers, you can get some extra free credits.

Gling's pricing structure: Free Trial and Paid Plan that is US$15 per month
Edit your first video for free prior to getting on Gling’s Paid Plan

AI Video Editing Tool #3: Adobe Podcast

Adobe Podcast is an awesome AI tool that removes any background noise from your audio and enhances the speech.

Audio is probably the most important part of your video! So it’s awesome to have a tool to help you fix it if you weren’t able to capture great audio at the time of recording.

Adobe Podcast Website Homepage
Enhance your video’s audio using Adobe Podcast

Head to the Adobe Podcast website. You’ll need to sign in or create a free account.

Once signed in, go to Quick Tools in the top menu and select Enhanced Speech.

Then you can drag and drop your file to upload it.

Drag and drop section to upload your audio file in Adobe Podcast
Simply drag and drop your audio file to start the audio enhancement

One thing to keep in mind with Adobe Podcast is that it only works for audio files. So you’ll need to extract an MP3 or WAV file from your video footage.

To do this, we’ll jump into Final Cut Pro but you can use pretty much any video editing software. Drag your video footage to the editing timeline. Then go to Export and export just the Audio (e.g. just an MP3 file).

Export File settings with Audio Only selected in Final Cut Pro
Get audio from your video in Final Cut Pro by exporting and selecting “Audio Only”

Then you can upload that file to Adobe Podcast. It says some files can take up to 10 minutes but we’ve found it to process super quickly.

Once that has been processed, you can preview the audio by pressing Play. Then you can hit Download to save out the file which can be imported to your video editing software and linked back up with your original footage.

PRO TIP: If you line up your original audio with the enhanced audio from Adobe Podcast you can see what a big difference it makes to the background noise just by looking at the audio waveforms!

Original and enhanced audio track side by side in Final Cut Pro editing timeline
The enhanced audio is visually significantly quieter when you look at the waveforms

AI Video Editing Tool #4: Opus Clip

Opus Clip is another awesome AI tool that’s quite different to the ones we’ve covered so far.

It allows you to import your long form videos and then uses AI to identify shorter clips you can repurpose as short form content. It’s essentially an AI video generator that repurposes your longer videos.

Opus Clip Website Homepage
Opus Clip creates short clips from your long form videos

Opus Clip provides a Virality score for each video as an indicator of how well it thinks that video will perform.

There’s also Active Speaker Detection, so if you have multiple speakers it will automatically reframe your shots so that the active speaker is always framed well.

And there’s even an AI Keyword Highlighter tool which highlights key points in the captions of what you’re saying so that it really stands out for your viewers.

Opus Clip free account with textbox for YouTube link or drag and drop video file section to create short clips from
You can create short clips directly from a YouTube link or upload your video file

To get started you just need to create a free account and then you can either drop in a link to one of your YouTube videos or you can upload a file.

We tested this with one of our YouTube videos called ‘How We Make Over $20,000 Per Month From Affiliate Marketing’.

From this video, Opus Clip created five short form videos in portrait format.

As well as the Virality score, it also generates a title and description for each of the videos based on what’s covered in them.

A sample short clip in portrait format generated from a Primal Video video in Opus Clip with a Download HD button at the bottom and a generated caption on the side
You get a few generated clips from your uploaded video with its own title, description and caption

Some examples of the videos Opus Clip generated from our affiliate marketing video are:

  • Uncovering The Surprising Power Of Affiliate Marketing
  • Uncovering The Shocking Truth Behind Our Massive Affiliate Revenue
  • The Hidden Opportunities Of Affiliate Marketing For Beginners
  • The Dark Side Of Affiliate Marketing

From there you can either edit the clip to make adjustments to the title, captions, caption formatting and more. Or you can download the video with a single button press. Then it’s ready to upload to your platform of choice.

A transcription on the left side of the auto-generated short clips in Opus Clip
Similar to the other tools, you can edit your video in the auto-generated transcript

There are quite a few AI content generator services out there that offer this same thing as Opus Clip. But Opus Clip actually does a really good job of identifying awesome clips to repurpose in just a few clicks.

Opus Clip Pricing

There is a free trial available so you can test Opus Clip out for yourself. Following the trial, there are two pricing plans:

  • Essential: 200 upload minutes and up to 50 HD clips
  • Pro: Coming soon

The Essential plan starts at $16/month, but this is a sliding scale so you can pay more to get more upload minutes and clip downloads.

In terms of the Pro plan, we’ll have to wait and see what’s offered when this plan is released.

Opus Clip price plan with Essential tier starting at $16 per month, Pro Plan to come soon, and an Enterprise tier
The Essential Plan is a sliding scale where you choose the amount you want to pay according to your video duration and uploads

AI Video Editing Tool #5: CapCut

CapCut is one of our top picks when it comes to video editing tools for iOS, Android, Mac and Windows.

As well as being an awesome video editing app, CapCut also has some incredible AI features built-in that can help with your video creation. We won’t be able to cover them all, so we’ll just share a few highlights.

CapCut Website Homepage: Free all-in-one video editor for everyone to create anything anywhere
CapCut is a great video editing tool we frequently recommend for video editing

Auto Captions

After you’ve imported your footage to CapCut and dragged it onto the video editing timeline, you can select the clip, go to Text and press Auto Captions.

Hit Create and it will automatically analyze and transcribe your video. The automatically generated captions will appear on screen and as a text clip on your video editing timeline.

CapCut interface with a video in the preview area with an auto-generated caption
Select Text then Auto captions on the left side of the interface and hit Create

Again, this is fully customizable. You can adjust the presets, size, color, etc.

So it’s awesome to have this feature so accessible – it makes adding captions SO much faster than having to type out each word individually.

Text-To-Speech

After CapCut has transcribed your video, you can also access the Text-To-Speech tool. This is where an AI voice will read out your captions.

There are voices like:

  • Energetic Female
  • Charming Male
  • Confident Mate
  • Kids Vocalist
  • Many more
Text-to-speech voice preset selection in CapCut
Use text-to-speech in your videos with a number of AI Voice to choose from

Once you select a voice, press Start Reading. It will analyze your video and create a new audio clip on the timeline of the AI voice reading what you said.

If you mute the audio on your primary footage, you’ll only hear the AI narrator for your audio.

But there’s more! You’re not just limited to what you said in your video footage. You can actually edit the text file that was automatically generated from your video. Once you’ve made any changes to that text, the AI voice will read out the new text. So you can get the AI voice to say pretty much anything…

Video caption being edited inside the preview area in CapCut
Clicking on your caption in the editing timeline shows where you can edit and customize it

Background Remover

Another awesome AI tool in CapCut is the background remover. Select your clip and go to Video in the top right corner.

From there select Cutout and then Auto Cutout.

CapCut will then process your clip and automatically remove the background for you.

Auto cutout feature in CapCut toggled on and the preview area is showing the video subject with a cut out background
Remove your background with one tick using the ‘Auto cutout’ feature

PRO TIP: This only works if you have people in your scene.

So it’s great that you don’t need a green screen or blue screen or anything like that to be able to remove your background.

AI Enhancements

CapCut also provides some AI facial adjustment tools. To access these, make sure your clip is selected, go to Video and select Enhance.

Here you can do things like:

  • Make skin smoother
  • Brighten skin
  • Whiten teeth
  • Apply makeup

Some of these can look a bit creepy but they can be helpful if you’re looking for that Instagram filter-style effect.

Video Enhancement selection with Makeup filter options being featured
You can enhance your features using the AI facial adjustment tools

Video Effects

There are lots of really cool video effects in CapCut that can help you get creative with your video edits.

Go to Effects in the top menu. Under Video Effects you’ll see things like Camera Shake, Edge Glow, Cinematic and SO much more.

If you select Body Effects in the left menu, you’ll see options like Eye Reflection, Lightning, Big Mouth, Heart Background and tons more.

Previously, if you wanted to use these types of effects you’d need to learn motion graphics software like Adobe After Effects. But now, the AI can analyze your content and apply the effects to your video for you.

Video Effects selection in CapCut with Eye Reflection option selected
CapCut has numerous selection of Video Effects to choose from

CapCut Pricing

For the most part, a lot of these tools are completely free! CapCut did recently introduce a Pro Plan which means some functionalities are now restricted. But the majority of the tools we covered are available on the free plan.

Best AI Video Editors & Tools For Video Creation In 2023

Now you know our top AI video editing tools!

These things are progressing super quickly, so stay tuned for our next roundup of the best AI tools to help speed up your video creation process & create engaging videos.

If you want to level up your video editing, download a free copy of the Primal Video Method. This guide takes you through the ultimate streamlined video editing process to help you edit videos faster.

FAQ

Is there a free AI video editor?

Yes! There are a number of AI tools that can edit your videos for free – our #1 pick is Descript. There are other options such as Gling which have free trials but then require you sign up for a paid plan.

Is there an AI that can edit a video?

There sure is. Gling is an awesome tool that makes suggested edits in your video content.

What is the best AI video generator?

Opus Clip is an impressive AI service that generates multiple short form videos from your long form content.


Recommended Gear & Resources

Check out an up-to-date list of all the gear, software & tools we use and recommend right now at Primal Video on our resources page here!

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