AI Clips and Shorts
Turn long YouTube videos into ready-to-post short clips for YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram Reels with AI-ranked moments, captions, music, and graphics.
AI Clips finds the strongest short-form moments inside a long YouTube video and turns them into export-ready clips. Use it when you want Shorts, TikToks, or Reels without manually scrubbing through the full video, picking timestamps, writing captions, and assembling the edit yourself.
What AI Clips Creates
Each clip project includes:
- Ranked clip suggestions with titles, timestamps, hook notes, categories, and viral scores
- Platform fit notes for Shorts, TikTok, Reels, and other short-form channels
- Captioned previews once the source video finishes preparing
- Optional 9:16 portrait or 16:9 landscape output
- Exported MP4 files with captions, hook title graphics, progress bar, optional brand frame, end card, music, keyword emphasis, and AI b-roll when available
Clip analysis and previews are free. Exporting a finished MP4 costs 2 credits per clip.
Create a Clip Project
- Go to AI Clips in the dashboard
- Paste a YouTube video URL
- Click Find viral clips
- Wait while the AI fetches the transcript, scores moments, and ranks the best clips
- Open the project to review the suggested clips
Analysis usually takes under a minute. After the project opens, the source video may still be preparing in the background. You can review the ranked list immediately, but exports are available once the preview says the video is ready.
Choose Clips
AI Clips automatically selects the highest-scoring clips first. You can change the selection before exporting:
- Click a clip card to focus the preview
- Use the checkbox on each card to include or remove it from the batch export
- Compare viral score, hook strength, category, platform fit, and duration
- Review the AI hook note to understand why the moment was selected
Good short clips usually start with a clear hook, deliver one focused idea, and resolve quickly. If a clip feels slow in the first few seconds, skip it even if the overall topic is strong.
Customize the Export
Use the customization panel before exporting:
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Caption style | Visual style for subtitles: bold, clean, minimal, energetic, or glow |
| Highlight keywords | Emphasizes important words in the captions |
| Background music | Adds mood-matched music when the music library is available |
| Hook title intro | Adds an animated title card at the start |
| Progress bar | Adds a short-form progress indicator |
| Brand frame | Uses your selected brand color as a frame |
| End card | Adds a final call-to-action, such as "Follow for more" |
| AI b-roll | Inserts contextual generated visuals when the clip includes b-roll moments |
Use 9:16 for Shorts, TikTok, and Reels. Use 16:9 when you want a horizontal clip for YouTube, a website, or a longer edit.
Export and Download
- Select the clips you want
- Confirm the total credit cost in the export bar
- Click Export
- Watch each clip move through queued, rendering, and finishing states
- Click Download MP4 when the render completes
If an export fails, failed renders are refunded automatically by the render pipeline. You can retry the clip after adjusting the selection or settings.
Using AI Clips from the API
Developers can run the same workflow from the API:
- Create a clip project with
POST /api/v1/clips/projects - Poll
GET /api/v1/clips/projects/{projectId}untildownloadStatusisready - Render one or more clip IDs with
POST /api/v1/clips/projects/{projectId}/renders - Poll
GET /api/v1/clips/renders/{renderId}untilstatusiscompleted - Download the finished MP4 from
outputUrl
See the API endpoints guide or the interactive API reference for request and response examples.
Tips
- Start with the top 3-5 clips instead of exporting every suggestion
- Use portrait format for the widest short-form distribution
- Keep end-card text short so it remains readable on mobile
- Turn on brand frame only when you have a brand selected
- Export clips from videos that already performed well; strong long-form topics usually repurpose better
- Pair AI Clips with Social Media Posts to create captions for the same video
Related
- Repurpose Your Videos — Overview of all repurposing tools
- Social Media Posts Generator — Generate launch posts for each platform
- Understanding Credits — How credits are charged and refunded