The conversation around AI is loud. It’s full of hype, fear, and promises of a creative utopia (or apocalypse, depending on who you ask). From understanding how creative pros can leverage ChatGPT to mastering the tools already in your software, it’s time to cut through the noise. For professional video editors, AI isn’t some far-off concept—it’s already inside the tools you use every day. The question isn’t if you should use it, but how you can leverage it to work faster, solve mundane problems, and free up your time for the creative work that actually matters.
This is not a beginner’s overview. This is a direct, no-fluff guide for experienced creative professionals on the AI-powered features inside Adobe Premiere Pro that are genuinely useful. We’ll break down what they are, how they work, and most importantly, how to integrate them into a professional workflow. These are tools. And like any tool, they are only as good as the person wielding them.
Text-Based Editing
What It Is
Text-Based Editing is arguably one of the most significant workflow updates to Premiere Pro in years. It automatically transcribes the audio in your source clips and sequences, then allows you to edit your video by manipulating the transcribed text. You can copy, paste, and delete text in the transcript, and those changes are reflected directly in your timeline. It turns interview footage, documentaries, and dialogue-heavy scenes into a searchable, editable document.
A Practical Workflow
Imagine you have a two-hour interview with a client. The old method involved scrubbing through footage, setting in-and-out points, and slowly assembling a rough cut. It was tedious and time-consuming.
With Text-Based Editing, the process is inverted.
- Import and Transcribe: Drop your interview footage into a new sequence. Premiere Pro automatically prompts you to transcribe it. Let it run. It’s impressively fast and accurate, even with varied audio quality.
- Search and Select: Open the Text panel (Window > Text). You now have a full, searchable transcript of your entire interview. Need to find where the subject mentions “brand strategy”? Just type it into the search bar. Every instance is highlighted.
- Assemble the Rough Cut: Read through the transcript. Highlight the sentences and paragraphs you want to use in your edit. Click the “Insert” button. Premiere Pro automatically lays those corresponding clips down on your timeline in the order you selected them. You’ve just created a dialogue-based rough cut in minutes, not hours.
- Refine the Edit: Now you can fine-tune the pacing. Notice a long, awkward pause in the transcript? Just delete the corresponding ellipsis (…) in the text panel, and the pause is removed from the timeline. It’s that direct.
Pro Tips for Text-Based Editing
This feature goes beyond simple rough cuts. Use it to find and remove filler words. Search for “um,” “uh,” or “you know” across an entire sequence, and Premiere will list every instance. You can then navigate to each one and decide whether to cut it. It’s a surgical tool for cleaning up dialogue that saves an incredible amount of time. You can also use the transcript to create captions and subtitles instantly, as the transcription work is already done.
Enhance Speech
What It Is
Enhance Speech is an AI-powered audio tool designed to clean up dialogue. It analyzes your audio clips, identifies background noise and reverb, and then processes the audio to make the voice sound as if it were recorded in a professional studio. It’s not a simple noise gate or EQ filter; it’s a deep learning model that has been trained on thousands of hours of audio to understand the difference between human speech and unwanted noise.
How It Works
The tool is accessible directly from the Essential Sound panel. When you apply “Enhance Speech” to a clip, the audio is sent to Adobe’s servers for analysis (an internet connection is required). The AI model rebuilds the voice waveform while stripping out everything else. The result is a clean, crisp vocal track, often with a level of quality that was previously only achievable with expensive plugins or dedicated audio restoration software like Izotope RX.
When to Use It (And When Not To)
This tool is a lifesaver for documentary filmmakers, corporate video producers, and anyone who has to work with audio recorded in less-than-ideal conditions. Think of an interview recorded in a loud conference hall, a testimonial filmed in an echoey office, or a piece-to-camera shot on a windy day. Enhance Speech can often salvage this otherwise unusable audio.
However, it’s not a magic bullet. It is designed specifically for dialogue. Don’t try to use it on music or complex soundscapes, as it will likely misinterpret the audio and produce strange artifacts. It is also a destructive tool in the sense that it processes the audio and replaces it. It’s best practice to duplicate your audio track before applying Enhance Speech, so you always have the original recording to fall back on if needed.
Settings and Control
The main control is a “Mix” slider. This determines the intensity of the effect. Pushing it to 100% can sometimes make the dialogue sound overly processed or artificial. A good starting point is around 75-85%. Listen carefully to the result. The goal is to make the dialogue clear and understandable without it sounding robotic. Use your ears, not just the numbers.
Remix Tool
What It Is
The Remix Tool uses AI to intelligently re-time a piece of music to fit a specific duration. Every editor has faced this problem: you have a 90-second music track, but your edit is only 60 seconds long. Your options were to either create a jarring hard cut, spend time manually finding beat-matched edit points, or fade the music out awkwardly. The Remix Tool automates this entire process.
Smart Music Editing in Practice
The Remix Tool is located in the toolbar (it looks like a little musical note with arrows).
- Select the Tool: Activate the Remix Tool.
- Drag to Resize: Go to the end of a music clip on your timeline and simply drag it to your desired length. As you drag, Premiere Pro analyzes the musical structure—the beats, phrases, and transitions—of the song in real-time.
- Let the AI Work: When you release the mouse, the AI automatically creates new edit points, crossfades, and loops that are musically coherent. It doesn’t just slice the audio; it finds natural transition points to shorten or lengthen the track while preserving the feel and rhythm of the original piece. A 3-minute song can become a 30-second cutdown in seconds.
Customizing the Remix
While the automatic results are often very good, you can customize the AI’s behavior in the Essential Sound panel. Under the “Remix” section, you can adjust two key parameters:
- Segments: This prioritizes cutting or adding longer musical phrases. If the AI is making too many quick, noticeable cuts, increasing the “Segments” value can encourage it to find more natural, longer transition points.
- Variations: This controls the melodic and harmonic diversity of the remix. A lower value will stick closer to the original song’s core melody, while a higher value will pull from a wider range of musical elements within the track.
Auto Reframe
What It Is
Auto Reframe is a tool designed to solve a very modern problem: creating multiple versions of a video for different social media platforms. You finish a 16:9 widescreen video for YouTube, and now the client wants a 9:16 vertical version for TikTok, a 1:1 square version for Instagram, and a 4:5 version for a different feed. Re-framing every single shot manually is a soul-crushing task.
Auto Reframe uses Adobe’s Sensei AI to analyze the content of your shots and automatically identify the main point of action. It then reframes your sequence to the new aspect ratio, ensuring the subject stays in the frame.
The Workflow for Social Content
- Duplicate Your Sequence: Always work on a copy. Right-click your final 16:9 sequence in the Project panel and select “Duplicate.”
- Apply Auto Reframe: Right-click the new, duplicated sequence and choose “Auto Reframe Sequence.”
- Choose Your Aspect Ratio: A dialog box will appear with presets for Vertical (9:16), Square (1:1), and other common sizes. You can also set a custom aspect ratio.
- Select Motion Tracking: You can choose between “Slower Motion,” “Default,” and “Faster Motion.” This tells the AI how to prioritize motion. For a fast-paced action sequence, choose “Faster Motion.” For a slower, interview-based video, “Slower Motion” will prevent unnecessary camera movements.
- Review and Refine: Premiere Pro will create a new sequence with the re-framed clips. The AI is good, but it’s not perfect. Go through the new sequence and check the framing on each clip. If a shot is slightly off, you can manually adjust the keyframes that the AI has generated in the Effects Controls panel.
AI in the Lumetri Color Panel
Auto Color
The “Auto” button in the Lumetri Color panel has been around for a while, but it’s now powered by a more sophisticated AI model. It provides a one-click starting point for color correction. It analyzes the image to identify and correct for exposure, contrast, and white balance issues. For experienced colorists, this isn’t a replacement for a manual grade. Instead, think of it as a tool for batch-correcting raw footage. If you have 50 clips shot in the same environment with minor lighting variations, applying Auto Color across all of them can quickly establish a consistent, neutral base. From there, you can apply your creative grade.
Color Match
Color Match is a more advanced feature that uses AI to analyze the color palette of one clip and apply it to another. This is incredibly useful for matching shots from different cameras or from scenes shot on different days under different lighting conditions.
In the Lumetri Color panel, go to the “Color Wheels & Match” section. Activate Comparison View to see your reference shot and your current shot side-by-side. With the current shot selected, click “Apply Match.” The AI analyzes the color and light information from the reference frame—shadow tones, midtone saturation, highlight temperature—and intelligently maps those characteristics onto your target clip. The initial result gets you about 90% of the way there, and you can use the sliders to fine-tune the match.
The Real Challenge: Staying Ahead
These tools are powerful. They are designed to handle the repetitive, time-consuming tasks that get in the way of creative work. Text-Based Editing, Enhance Speech, and the Remix Tool are not gimmicks; they are legitimate, professional-grade features that can transform your workflow.
But the tools are changing at an exponential rate. What is cutting-edge today will be standard tomorrow, driving intense competition between platforms like Affinity and Adobe, and obsolete the day after. The real challenge for any creative professional isn’t just mastering today’s tools, but understanding the trajectory of where this technology is going. Your success in the AI era will be defined by your ability to adapt, learn, and integrate new workflows—from the features in this article to more niche tools like ComfyUI—without getting distracted by the hype.
That’s why staying informed is critical. If you’re serious about future-proofing your creative career and leveraging AI as a strategic advantage, you need a reliable source of information that cuts through the noise. That’s the entire focus of the Chase Jarvis newsletter—to provide creative professionals with actionable advice and a clear perspective on navigating the intersection of creativity and technology.
AI Doesn’t Replace Skill, It Amplifies It
Let’s be direct. None of these AI features can turn bad footage into a great story. Auto Reframe can’t fix a poorly composed shot. Enhance Speech can’t save a horribly clipped audio recording. And Text-Based Editing can’t write a compelling narrative for you.
These are force multipliers. They are for professionals who already know what they’re doing. They amplify your existing skills, allowing you to execute your creative vision faster and more efficiently. The editor who understands pacing and story structure will be able to build a rough cut with Text-Based Editing in a fraction of the time. The colorist with a trained eye will use Color Match as a starting point to achieve a perfect grade faster.
The AI revolution isn’t about replacing creatives. It’s about arming them with smarter tools. Learn them, master them, and use them to get back to the work that requires real skill and grit—the work that only you can do.
