Can Video Editing Be Replaced by AI? Should Video Editors Worry?

The answer to this question in 2025 is – NO!

Because the truth is that currently, AI video editors are completely USELESS!

But before we can really answer this question, we have to understand the type of video editing that is in question.

Are We Talking About Video Editing or Video Generation?

That’s because Video Editing and Video Generation are two different things, but are often used interchangeably.

Video editing means taking an existing video and refining it.

Video generation means creating a brand new video from scratch.

So here’s the truth – AI still struggles with video editing. I will shortly give you some examples of this.

But AI is getting pretty good at video generation, but again no where near the level of what you would get if you were to get a video made from a professional media company.

Let’s see some examples of both.

Video Editing

Opus Clip AI – Good but boring

I research a lot about video editing and till now, the only software I have truly been impressed with is Opus Clip AI, which is a re-purposing tool that makes short form content from longer videos, with a few clicks. You can watch the video below to see it in action:

Even though this AI tool does its job well, it’s usefulness is limited to short form content only. And that too only in a single style. It really can’t offer different styles of editing and is not useful at anything else.

So while it’s a good tool, it is not replacing any video editor any time soon.

Descript AI – Utterly Useless

The next video editing tool that made a lot of noise was Descript AI, a script-based editor, which means you edit your videos by editing the transcribed text.

I never understood the hype around it. I mean it still involves lot of work so what’s the point of AI here? Might as well just stick to the traditional timeline based editing.

In fact it often took me longer to edit video in Descript AI than it did in Premiere Pro.

You can check out my detailed review on this tool:

Wisecut AI – Had real potential but was taken off the shelf

Wisecut AI was the only AI tool that actually gave me some hope. You could upload an unedited video, and it would give you the edited video with all the issues corrected with a single click.

Unfortunately, the people behind it pulled the plug on it and replaced it with a tool that does what Opus Clip AI does – re-purposing content.

But in case you are interested, I still have the review of the older Wisecut AI on my YouTube channel. You can watch it below:

This was the only tool that actually did what an AI video editor was supposed to do. And I feel, if it was allowed to continue and improved upon, had the capacity to replace video editors.

Video Generation

When it comes to video generation, there are a plethora of AI tools which allow you to create videos by writing prompts.

These are not bad but not too great either.

Let me show you an example:

I used Pincel AI‘s short form video generator and used the following prompt –

Short promo video for a soccer academy based in Los Angeles.

This was the result it came out with:

It’s not too bad but it’s such a generic looking boring video with some voice over and some photos. Where’s the animation, the videos, the transitions, etc?

And that’s exactly what majority of these AI generators do. They certainly can produce good results but then it would also require a great effort from your end to be able to craft some detailed prompts and go through a lot of trial and error.

So I don’t think they will pose any threat any time soon either.

Conclusion

Video editing is a very tricky affair. It’s not like photo editing, where you produce a static result, allowing you to focus on one element.

That’s why AI can very well replace photo editing, but video editing is a different beast all together.

Even within the realm of video generation, the only tools that seem to possess any threat are the ones where you can create AI avatars, like HeyGen AI.

But apart from that, it’s safe to say that, human video editors don’t have anything to worry about.

At least for the next decade.