Video editing app Captions, which is backed by a16z, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Captial, has released a new feature that takes an existing raw video and adds custom graphics, zooms, music, sound effects, transitions and motion backgrounds based on the content .
There are some limitations to the AI edit — it must be a vertical video of a person talking, with only one person in the frame.
The key part is that even if you don’t have such videos or this isn’t your style of video capture, you can use subtitles AI avatars to create a video with a short prompt and later feed that video into the feature AI editing to get a fully edited video in minutes with different transitions and effects.
Gaurav Misra, co-founder and CEO of Captions, told TechCrunch that when he left Snap in 2021, he set out to make the video creation process easier with the primary purpose of communication.
“Our main goal was to allow people to get a message across. If you think about the journey of what it takes to say what you want to say in video, it’s complicated. It starts with the idea of what I really want to say, preparing the script, recording the video and editing it to make the clip compelling,” he said, referring to the thinking behind creating a series of features using artificial intelligence to create video. .
Using artificial intelligence to create videos
Misra said that with Captions, the company wants to provide three types of video recording tools to people. First, it aims to provide the best camera toolkit to help recording. Second, it also offers editing tools like AI-powered corrections for manually recorded videos. And finally, Subtitles features a production layer where the user doesn’t need to record any video at all.
The company currently offers 12 AI characters. But going forward, the company wants to add three to four characters to its portfolio every week. Ultimately, the goal for the startup is to let users create their own AI creators.
Misra sees these tools being used primarily for sales, marketing and communication channels by consumer-focused companies. Companies like D-ID and Synthesia allow organizations to create digital avatars for video. Earlier this month, TikTok also allowed creators to make AI avatars, as well as offer its own AI character for ads. Misra believes that Subtitles offer better quality and you can access all the video creation tools from the phone.
The tension between AI and creators
Captions’ feature set makes it easy for users to create videos. We created the video below with only the “Dangers of Artificial Intelligence for Creators” prompt and pressed a few buttons for creation and edits. It’s kind of annoying to hear an AI avatar talk about the dangers of AI.
These tools make it easy for people to simply flood social media and the internet in general with content, be it good or bad. This can create a discovery problem for creators who spend hours creating content.
Misra acknowledged that this is a valid concern, but believes that people creating with AI tools should still make sure the video has good content and something people care about.
“Mass-producing content would be possible, but to stand out, you have to have a unique message or story, where people will spend more of their time now. He kind of liked how digital music made it easier to make music without playing an instrument, but instead of reducing the quality of music, it just allowed more people to become musicians and raised the bar for creativity, he said.
The company plans to release new features for its AI-avatar-based video creations, such as a skit mode where two (or two identical) avatars can talk to each other.
