I love AI tools that are practical, well-designed, and no-brainer useful!

In this post, I share an AI tool called Submagic — an AI powered video editor to help you create viral short videos.

It takes the tedious work out of video editing, and leaves the fun stuff — experimenting with caption styles, choosing B-roll and GIFs, playing with transitions and music.

I've personally used Submagic for some TikTok videos.

By far, it’s the most fun AI-powered short-form video editor.

And, it leverages AI in very specific ways behind-the-scenes, while maintaining an intuitive and beginner-friendly user experience.

Much less overwhelming than a heavy-duty video editor like Adobe Premiere or even Da Vinci Pro. Both these tools are wonderful and brimming with features, but they’re overkill for most creator’s short-form video needs.

Here’s my step-by-step Youtube tutorial showing how to use Submagic:

Use Cases

Submagic is already used by thousands of top creators across multiple platforms, from TikTok to YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. You can even use it for video-based ads in paid campaigns.

I’ve found it works best for “talking head videos”, such as one person explaining something or interviewing someone.

And, it works across all types of niches:

Simply put, Submagic makes video creation fun and easy.

And, I have zero background in video creation or editing.

I hate spending loads of time editing.

I’d rather spend my time on research and creating high-quality content, not filming or editing.

Key Features

Here are the Submagic features I use most often:

1. Dynamic Captions and Emojis: Submagic automatically generates captions and allows you to add animated emojis to make your videos more engaging.

2. Automatic B-Roll Insertion: Based on your video transcript keywords, Submagic finds and inserts relevant B-roll footage automatically.

3. Captivating Effects: This includes auto-zoom effects, sound effects, music, transitions, AI-generated titles and descriptions, and more.

4. Dictionary: Improve the accuracy of captions by maintaining a dictionary of terms commonly transcribed wrong.

How It Works

First, sign up for a free account and upload an existing short video.

The free tier, unfortunately, means all videos will be watermarked.

But, you can still test drive most features!

For example, I uploaded a talking head TikTok video where I share YouTube channels for startups and entrepreneurs.

Then, Submagic AI generates captions automatically.

You can even apply AI to remove silences, filler words, and clean up the audio with a single click:

Next comes the fun part — adding dynamic captions and B-roll.

You can create a totally unique caption style.

I started with “Hormozi” style captions and updated one of the colors to pink.

I adjusted their size and position to make them more eye-catching.

You can also add animated emojis and sound effects to specific timestamps in your video.

Below, I’ve added a melting smiley face and “Click” sound effect to the line where I talk about YCombinator 🫠

Another awesome AI-powered feature is called "Magic B-Roll".

In one click, Submagic employs AI behind-the-scenes to analyze my video's transcript keywords and automatically finds relevant B-roll footage to insert.

This eliminates the tedious task of searching for and aligning B-roll clips.

For example, in my video about YouTube channels for entrepreneurs, Submagic added b-rolls footage based on each section of the transcript:

Another feature I like is called “Dictionary”.

You can add words to your Submagic dictionary to ensure they’re spelled correctly and consistently across all AI-generated captions. This is useful for commonly misspelled words or unique terms.

Believe it or not, TikTok auto captions almost always misspells ChatGPT!

Further, you can add GIFs or images attached to specific words in your captions, making your videos a little more entertaining.

Below, I added a GIF of Gary Vee to the end of my video.

Done in just a few clicks!

Pricing and Alternatives

I don’t love Submagic’s pricing.

The free plan is kinda useless because all videos are exported with a watermark, so you wouldn’t want to upload them to any social platform.

The Growth plan $50/month is best for serious content creators.

The premium B-roll library is 10x better, and the AI-powered features to trim audio saves a ton of time. 4k export is a nice plus, too.

If Submagic's pricing doesn't fit your budget, here are some alternatives.

I like Opus Clip to repurpose long-form video into short-form video.

Captions recently raised $60M in funding, valued at $500M, and includes a video editor with various AI-powered features, including fixing your eye contact when looking and speaking at the camera.

I personally use CapCut (free plan) to edit my Youtube videos.

But again, I hate the tedious aspects of filming and editing, so I don’t do much of either 😅 hence, CapCut’s free plan works fine for me.

Final Thoughts

Whether you're a seasoned video creator or a noob starting out (like I was 3 months ago!), I highly recommend checking out Submagic, just for fun.

Overall, I think it’s a fantastic example of how AI can simplify real-world complex workflows and make them easily accessible to folks without technical backgrounds, such as video editing.

And, I love how it leverages AI to streamline tedious aspects of video editing, while leaving the fun parts to us!

Did I miss anything?

Have ideas or suggestions?

Message me on LinkedIn👋

Sabrina Ramonov

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