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How to use Edit with AI in YouTube Shorts, step by step

YouTube's Edit with AI turns your clips into a first-draft Short with music, transitions and a voiceover. The steps, limits, countries and what it cannot do.

8 min read

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A raw clip in grey of a waterfall in a green valley beside the finished travel Short, an aerial beach with a pin label that says Somewhere warm

The short answer

Edit with AI is a YouTube feature that turns your own clips into a first draft of a Short, with music and transitions, and in the YouTube Create app a voiceover and captions. In the YouTube app, tap Create, then Short, add clips, tap Edit with AI and pick a template. It takes no text prompt. It is an experiment in select countries, and it needs at least 5 seconds of clips: up to 3 minutes in the YouTube app and up to 5 minutes in YouTube Create.

Key takeaways

  • Edit with AI turns your own clips into a first-draft Short with music and transitions. In YouTube Create it can also add a voiceover and captions.
  • Start it in the YouTube app from Create, Short, Add and Edit with AI, or from the Create Shorts banner in the YouTube Create app.
  • It takes no text prompt. You choose a template or features, and the clips you pick steer the draft.
  • It is an experiment in select countries. YouTube Create lists 14 countries and voiceover in Bengali, English, Hindi and Portuguese.

What is Edit with AI on YouTube?

Edit with AI is a YouTube feature that makes a first draft of a Short from your own clips. YouTube announced it at Made on YouTube on 16 September 2025. In the launch post, YouTube says it transforms raw camera roll footage into a first draft. It finds and arranges your best moments, adds music and transitions, and can add a playful voiceover that reacts to what happens in the video.

It works on the footage you give it. The YouTube Create page describes it as AI that trims and arranges your clips into a first draft. YouTube says it uses SynthID watermarks and content labels to show when its creation tools generated something with AI.

You find it in two places: the Shorts camera in the YouTube app, and YouTube Create, YouTube's free editing app for Android and iOS. YouTube calls it an experiment, and it is available only in some countries.

Edit with AI in the YouTube app and in YouTube Create, from YouTube Help, checked 7 November 2026
DetailYouTube app (Shorts camera)YouTube Create app
Where you startCreate, then Short, then AddThe Create Shorts banner at the top
What you addVideos or photos, 5 seconds to 3 minutes in total1 to 25 videos or photos, 5 seconds to 5 minutes
What you chooseAn edit style from templatesVoiceover, music and captions, and a length: under 15 seconds, 15 to 30 or 31 to 60
After the draftMore edits with the Shorts tools, or other musicChange the music volume or the voiceover, or go back with Edit video
ResultYou continue to upload it as a ShortYou export it, then download it or upload it to YouTube
Voiceover languagesNot listedBengali, English, Hindi and Portuguese
CountriesNot available in all regionsArgentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Türkiye and the United States

Sources: YouTube Help pages Create YouTube Shorts and Create with AI in the YouTube Create app.

How to use Edit with AI in the YouTube app

These are the steps from YouTube Help for the Shorts camera:

  1. Open the YouTube app and sign in.
  2. Tap Create, then Short.
  3. Tap Add in the bottom left corner.
  4. Select the videos or photos you want to use.
  5. Tap Edit with AI.
  6. Choose an edit style from the templates, then tap Next.
  7. Wait while YouTube makes the edited video.
  8. Watch the draft, then tap Next.
  9. Continue to upload your Short.

Add at least 5 seconds and at most 3 minutes of clips in total. After the draft, you can add more edits with the Shorts editing tools or change the music. If Edit with AI does not appear, it is probably not available in your country yet: YouTube says the feature is not available in all regions.

How to use Edit with AI in YouTube Create

YouTube Create gives you more choices before the draft is made (YouTube Help):

  1. Open YouTube Create and tap the Create Shorts banner at the top.
  2. Select 1 to 25 videos and photos, then tap Next.
  3. Choose the editing features you want, such as voiceover, music and captions, then tap Next.
  4. Watch the draft. Change the music volume or the voiceover here, or tap Edit video to go back to the editing features.
  5. Tap Export, then Done.
  6. Download the video or upload it to YouTube.

You can choose the length of the draft: under 15 seconds, 15 to 30 seconds, or 31 to 60 seconds. The clips you upload must be 5 seconds to 5 minutes long. At launch the voiceover spoke English or Hindi (Google India blog). The help page now lists Bengali, English, Hindi and Portuguese.

Can you prompt Edit with AI?

No. Neither help page describes a text prompt for Edit with AI. In the YouTube app you pick a template, and in YouTube Create you pick features and a length. The draft is built from the clips you select, so choosing the clips is how you steer it.

YouTube has separate tools that do take a prompt. They make new clips, images or backgrounds. They do not edit your footage into a Short:

  • Create video in the Shorts camera: a standalone clip up to 10 seconds long from a text prompt and up to 3 reference photos (AI-generated features for Shorts). It is not available in the EEA, and reference photos are not available in the UK.
  • Green screen background: describe what you want and pick a style, and YouTube makes an image or a video to put behind you. It is not available in the EEA.
  • Photo to video: turns one photo from your gallery into a clip with one of the suggested prompts. It is not available in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland.
  • Gemini Omni in YouTube Create: vertical or horizontal clips up to 10 seconds long from a prompt of up to 900 characters and up to 3 reference images (YouTube Help).

Prompt examples, and how to steer Edit with AI with your clips

We wrote these prompts for the 10-second clip tools above. They are examples, not tested results. Name the subject, the place, the light and one camera move, so the new clip matches the footage around it.

Example brief
A close-up of fresh espresso pouring into a white cup on a wooden café counter, warm morning light, slow push-in, vertical.
Example brief
A wide shot of a city street at dusk after rain, neon reflections on the wet road, people walking past, slow pan to the right, vertical.

Edit with AI itself takes no words, so the clips you add are the brief:

  • Pick clips where one thing clearly happens: the reveal, the reaction, the finished result.
  • Trim the start and end of long clips in your gallery first, so the draft does not use setup or dead time.
  • Add the clips in the order the story happens.
  • In YouTube Create, leave the voiceover off when your clips already have speech you want to keep.

What Edit with AI cannot do

  • It takes no written instructions. You cannot ask it to cut on the beat, open on a certain shot or keep a certain line.
  • It makes Shorts. In YouTube Create the longest draft option is 31 to 60 seconds.
  • It is available only in some countries, and the voiceover only in four languages.
  • It runs in phone apps: the YouTube app and YouTube Create.
  • In the YouTube app, the help page lists two changes after the draft: more edits with the Shorts tools, or other music.

When you want to direct the edit

If you want to say exactly how the Short should go, use an editor that takes instructions. Vidova's AI agent edits your own clips on a timeline from a request in plain words. It writes captions you can correct word by word, detects the beats of a track to cut on, and exports 9:16 video for Shorts, Reels and TikTok. It works in a web browser.

Example brief
Make a 30-second vertical Short from these clips. Open on the moment the cake comes out of the oven, keep the clips in the order I filmed them, cut on the beat of an upbeat track and add captions to what I say in clip 3. Keep all text inside the area Shorts leaves clear.

You can start free. Paid plans start at $19 a month, remove the watermark and export up to 4K at 60 fps. To start from one long video instead of clips, see turn a long video into Shorts, Reels and TikToks.

Sources

All pages checked on 7 November 2026.

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