5 great AI tools for video editors in 2023

AI-powered tools can help video editors immensely by automating certain key repetitive  tasks, freeing them to do more creative things.

The Genie is out of the bottle and it isn’t going back in. Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionised the way video content is created, and it has become an indispensable tool for many video editors. Many of you are purists, and we love and respect that. However, there’s no getting away from the fact that with the help of AI tools, video editors can save time, automate tedious tasks, and (arguably) enhance the creative process. It also dramatically lowers the learning curve for new content creators. 

So, below I explore a range of AI powered tools that can speed up and improve your video editing process, whether you’re a beginner that wants to tell a story with video or an expert that wants to save time/ become more productive.

Adobe Sensei

Adobe Sensei is an incredibly powerful AI tool that comes with Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and other Adobe Creative Cloud applications. It can analyse footage and automatically apply edits such as colour correction, noise reduction, and image stabilisation. Adobe Sensei can also analyse dialogue and generate automatic captions and transcripts. It even has the ability to match footage from different sources with a single click. Oh, and as I found out earlier today when a client asked for a video to be delivered in 16:9 and 1x1, Sensei’s “Auto Reframe” tool can be a lifesaver!

Lumen5

Lumen5 is an AI-powered video creation platform that allows users to turn blog posts, articles, or other written content into genuinely engaging videos. With Lumen5, video editors can save time by automating the video creation process (yes, really), and the platform's AI algorithms can help identify the most important parts of the text and turn them into stunning visuals.

Animoto

Okay, so I saw a demo of this on Instagram and had to check it out! Animoto is a video creation platform that uses AI to help users create professional-looking corporate videos quickly and easily. With Animoto, video editors can upload their own footage or choose from the platform's library of stock footage, music, and images. The platform's AI technology then takes over, automatically selecting the best clips and transitions to create a polished video.

Colourlab.ai

We fell in love with this tool at first sight! Colourlab.ai is an AI-powered colour grading platform that allows users to enhance their video footage quickly and easily. With Colourlab.ai, video editors can upload their footage and choose from a range of presets or create their own custom look. You want your project to look like a still from The Joker? No problem - the look matching software will get you most of the way there. The platform's AI technology takes over, analysing the footage and applying colour grading adjustments to create a polished and professional-looking video.

Storylines.video

Storylines.video is a brand new (still in beta as of today but very much working) AI-powered text based (with more to come) video editing platform that helps users create engaging corporate or other dialogue focused videos in minutes. With Storylines.video, video editors can upload their footage and choose from a library of pre-built templates. The platform's AI technology then takes over, analysing the footage and automatically editing it to create a polished and engaging video. The platform also offers a range of customization options, allowing users to tweak the final product to their liking. It also integrates with all major NLEs allowing everyone (especially you purists out there) to finish up in Adobe Premiere Pro, AVID Media Composer, Apple FCP, Da Vinci Resolve etc OR simply export to MP4 if you’re in a hurry. If that isn’t enough it has a very smart collaboration tool that allows projects to have instant client and team feedback. If you want to help this product and provide feedback on the Beta version they have a pretty active Discord channel open here.

Transformative tools

So what have we learned? AI tools have transformed the video editing process, making it easier, faster, and more accessible than ever before. And that is a great thing IMO. Adobe Sensei, Lumen5, Animoto, Colourlab.ai, and Storylines.video are just a few of the many AI tools available to video editors. Whether you're creating social media videos, corporate productions, product demos, or full-length films, these tools can help you save time, automate tedious tasks, and enhance the creative process. So why not give them a try (most have a free version to test) and see how they can help take your video editing to the next level? Oh, and no doubt I’ve missed a few tools so feel free to add them to the comments below, or shout at me for allowing AI to take over the world.

Update: Ssemble & ChatGPT

As is the way of these things, more tools are emerging all the time. App developer Ssemble, for instance, is one of the first to integrate ChatGPT into its products with its ChatGPT script writer plugin and subsequent Script to video plugin. The idea is that users can easily generate full video scripts by simply entering their desired topic into the app hooked into ChatGPT. This spits out a script that can be edited if desired (tightening it or potentially removing the bits where the AI starts hallucinating). This is then loaded into the Script to Video Plugin that adds relevant stock videos or images, subtitles, and an AI-generated voiceover to match the content of the script. 

We've not had a chance to test it out yet so can't attest to the final output quality, but it certainly won't be the last editing product to try and use OpenAI tools and their like to speed up the video production process.