| TL;DR: Automated video editing makes your life easier and lets you eliminate tedious and boring tasks from your workflow. From resizing your videos and removing background noise to automatically deleting pauses and swapping your layers and assets – there’s a lot you can do. However, not all tools offer the same set of features. I wrote this article to explain the best value you can get from automatic video editors such as Wiscut, Kamua, Runway, and Plainly. |
So you decided you might need an automatic video editor. Good for you.
If you were to ask creative professionals or developers who handle a lot of video editing what they need an automatic video editor for, you’d get a bunch of different answers. That’s mainly because
- An automatic video editor actually means different things to different people (this makes it challenging to find what you’re looking for online)
- Users struggle with different parts of manual editing and are searching for solutions that will help them optimize their work (i.e. specific solutions for a specific pain point)
I’m pretty convinced that you’re not familiar with all the ways you can leverage automated video editing to free up your time and focus on more interesting, creative parts of your job. This is why I decided to explain the value different automatic video editors can bring to you.
By the way, if you’re searching for a specific use case that maybe isn’t covered in this article, feel free to send me a message and I’ll be happy to provide recommendations.
| Want to create dozens of personalized videos on autopilot? Plainly allows you to combine a video template of your choice and any data source (database, spreadsheet, API) to automate personalized video creation. Book a 15-min demo to see it in action. |
Automatic video editor #1: Wisecut for automated cuts
Overview: If you’re looking for an automatic video editor that automatically removes pauses, creates background music, and generates subtitles in your videos, then Wisecut might be the editing tool you need. The idea is to spend less time editing videos and more time creating content.
The strongest features: With a simple drag-and-drop, you can upload all your videos to Wisecut in bulk. Then you can create a video project and select AI-empowered features from the list. Something that I feel is rather useful is auto-cutting silences.
If you’re recording from a single take, then it’s completely natural to experience pauses and take time to think about what you’re going to say next. So instead of manually mapping out these moments and editing the video, Wisecut does it automatically for you.
Thanks to the automatic speech-to-text feature, you can browse through your videos by typing in a keyword in the search box, which will save you a ton of time if you’re looking for a specific part in your video. The company calls it a “transcribed storyboard”. Pretty cool, eh?
Full list of features:
- Auto cut silences
- Smart background music
- AI storyboard
- Auto subtitles
- Transcription
- YouTube integration
- AI-powered audio ducking
- Subtitles auto-translation
- Facial recognition auto punch-in
- Studio Voice
- Background noise-canceling
- Sound waves for audio files
- Facial recognition aspect ratio conversion (landscape, vertical and square.)
Pricing: Three pricing plans are available going from $0 to $57 per month. Discounts apply when paid annually.
Automatic video editor #2: Kamua for automated resizing
Overview: If you’re looking for an automatic video editor that automatically resizes your video so that it fits different social media formats, cuts your video into its component shots, and maybe even adds captions and subtitles (in 60 languages), Kamua might be your go-to editing tool. Better yet, it’s browser-based, meaning you don’t need to download software.
The strongest features: Kamua is an awesome tool. I would say its strongest feature is AutoCrop which allows you to automatically change the video size and aspect ratio from horizontal to vertical. It seems like it’s mostly designed for social media professionals. For instance, it’s fairly simple to convert landscape YouTube videos into vertical versions more suitable for TikTok or Instagram.
You can also easily preview how your video will look on a certain platform, which saves you the usual hassle of needing to render the video, transfer it to your phone, and then upload it just to see that something’s not right.
AutoCut is also a neat feature. As you already know, dealing with hours of raw video footage can suck a lot of your time, and let’s be honest – it’s boring. Kamua automatically finds cut points so that you can visually identify scenes you want to include in your final edit.
Full list of features:
- Browser based
- Fast cloud computing
- AutoCaption (you can add captions and subtitles in 60 languages)
- AutoCut
- AutoCrop (AI automatically crops your video by following the subject and keeping it inside the frame)
- CustomTrack (if you have multiple subjects in the video, mark the one that you want to keep inside the frame)
- KeyFraming
- AI builder
Pricing: Pricing information is currently not available on the Kamua website. However, other sources such as SaaSworthy list pricing plans that go from $0 to $100 per month. Discounts apply when paid annually.
Automatic video editor #3: Runway for AI-enabled video editing
Overview: If you’re looking for an automatic video editor that resembles the power of Adobe Premiere Pro, but you’re not really keen on doing all the heavy lifting, then I’d recommend you to take a look at Runway. With it, you can easily remove the background from your video, reframe it, delete the noise, add subtitles, and more.
The strongest features: Compared to other automatic video editors I listed here, Runway is more of a suite than a single tool. The strongest thing about Runway is its AI that enables you to optimize your video editing workflows and remove tedious and repetitive tasks from the process. The tool is more collaborative compared to others, as you can share the link to your project with your team and work together in the cloud, anytime, anywhere.
Pre-made video templates make it easy to get started and they eliminate the need of having a tech-savvy video designer by your side. Think AdobePhotoshop versus Canva: that’s basically Adobe Premiere Pro versus Runway, in my opinion.
All the filters and effects are fun to play around with. I would say that the attention to detail and the focus on the aesthetics of the video is Runway’s solid differentiation factor. It’s a powerful video editing tool that doesn’t require deep expertise, but because of the fact it’s so robust, you might find it overwhelming if you need a specific way to, for example, resize your video.
Full list of features:
- Resize video
- Add video effects
- Add music to video
- Trim video
- Clean audio
- Add text, images, and subtitles to video
- Change how the footage appears on-screen with LUTs (e.g. add a color filter for a consistent and uniformed feel across different videos)
Pricing: Available pricing plans go from $0 to $100 per month. A 20% discount is applied if paid annually.
Automatic video editor #4: Plainly for automatically swapping your layers and assets
Overview: If you’re looking for an automatic video editor to create various variations of your video, then Plainly is your best choice. The tool is perfect for creating personalized videos at scale, or batch-creating videos that look that are pretty much the same with a few tweaks because it allows you to combine a video template you create with any data source (database, spreadsheet, API).
| Not sure how you can leverage personalization in your specific business case? Check out our ultimate guide to personalized video marketing. |
The strongest features: If you want to use automate video creation on a scale, you want software that’s user-friendly and has a powerful API. I created Plainly so that developers, creative professionals, and no-code lovers could use it equally well.
Plainly is compatible with After Effects, meaning that you can easily change any part of the video: swap text, images, videos, audio, and colors. Then you can export as many variations of the video as you need – in just minutes.
The reason why users love Plainly? It’s in the simple way it works. A straightforward 3-step process:
- Create a video template in Adobe After Effects (the Plainly team can also create one for you)
- Upload your video template to Plainly (this is where you’ll choose your dynamic elements that will change every time)
- Create your automation (set up a project in Plainly and receive finished video links)
Another great thing about Plainly is that you don’t need to worry about video rendering or the quality of the video. Everything is done in the cloud, we take care of it.
| Not sure how you can use Plainly? Check out the list of different workflows to get the idea. |
Full list of features:
- Video creation API
- Unlimited scalability (1000+ videos per day)
- Compatible with After Effects
- Easily automate dynamic changes in your video templates (text, images, videos, audio, and even colors)
- Cloud-based software
- No-code automation tool (compatible with Zapier and Integromat, so you can integrate your favorite apps)
- Use any data source to swap dynamic elements in your videos (yep, even spreadsheets)
Pricing: Available pricing plans go from $0 to $599 per month. Prices vary depending on the length of the video, the storage you need, and the video retention time.
Investing in an automatic video editor = getting your time back
If you’re a creative professional or a developer who works in video editing, then investing in the right tools could be a true lifesaver. It’s about working smarter and allocating your energy to areas that are not easily replaced by tech. Let the automatic video editor do the heavy lifting.
Creating an outstanding product experience, delighting your customers, brainstorming video campaigns, creating content, and formulating hypotheses to test different marketing messages – that’s just some of the things you could be doing instead of figuring out time stamps on your video or how to effectively scale personalization (btw, I know scaling personalization sounds like a paradox, but it’s completely doable).
Maybe you never even knew that tools like the ones I listed above exist but now you recognize the potential value they could bring to your business. If that’s the case, my mission with this article has been accomplished. I’m happy if I helped you with choosing the right automatic video editor for yourself. Share this blog post with someone who might find it useful.
