Chat-GPT. Claude. This new model. Look what this AI did. Editing as a job is over.
These are the kind of messages that populate my feed right now. Different angles. Different new services. But the message is the same.
This is going to change everything.
And I think it will. But I also think the sensationalism is very over hyped.
So I decided to start testing what it can do, without making a scare tactic Youtube thumbnail out of it to get views (WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!).
The thing is, that I’ve been fed this messaging now for a couple of years. But I haven’t taken the leap to move in to it.
But I’m only human. It has built up this feeling of being left behind. That there is something out there that I don’t know about yet, that is a threat to my livelihood.
How I used AI for editing before starting this test
I’m not against AI at all. The opposite.
There are a number of AI apps out there that claims they do the editing for you based on the content you have. I’ve tried a few, like Eddie AI. But I quickly let it go because it was really bad, at least for what I do.
I use it (Claude mainly) for working with documentary interview scripts to help construct the narrative for my films.
I feed it subtitle files for all my interviews, and give as much context as I can and then we discuss the structure, the AI pulls up quotes that support different parts and after a while we have a rough structure that is filled with timecodes.
This is amazing, since the AI can hold so much more information in memory than me, but I’m still very much needed in the process – otherwise the script would be straight lined, without depth, super efficient and without soul.
This is where I took the leap of faith
This is exactly the workflow that on Wednesday this week made me take the leap into the scary black rabbit hole of AI supported editing.
After we had finished a long script for a video I’m making – A recut of the film about Martin and his resort building outside Bali (Which is my most “successful film” on Youtube in terms of views.), I was left with a looong list of quotes.
And I just felt the dread coming over me when thinking about going in to the timeline, find the timecode for each quote, move it to it’s right location and repeat in infinity.
And then it hit me. This is exactly what AI can help me with.
The tedious tasks that has no creative workload. It’s just time consuming, what I like to call “editing bookkeeping” tasks.
And I remembered seeing intimidating posts and Youtube thumbnails claiming that Claude now edit everything.
So I asked it. In the same chat we had been making the script.
“I heard you can edit in Davinci Resolve now – is that true, or is it just hype?”
And it came back and said something like “It’s mostly hype, but I can do basic things using an MCP server and scripts”.
And the overwhelm came over me again. THIS SOUNDS COMPLICATED TO SET UP.
So I asked again: “Can we set it up?”
And magically, it did. I had to press ok a couple of times and change two settings in Resolve.
Then it could pull all the timecoded quotes and put them in order for me, on the timeline.
We hit a few bugs, but after a few attempts. It worked. And this is amazing.
But that’s about where we are now. The hype is just hyping.
A time saver? YES. An editor? No.
So for this exact thing, it is a perfect companion. But am I worried it’s gonna take my job?
Not anytime soon.
It still doesn’t have taste.
It still can’t listen to the actual voice, read facial expressions or understand the tone of voice.
It’s a long long way away from replacing an editor. And those it can replace, are not editors.
But it can make life easier for editors, who hopefully can focus more on actual editing of amazing stories.
I think the sentence from the screenshot above “Everything is numbers – frames, timecodes, track indices” says a lot.
And before you say “But development is going faster and faster”. Yes I know. Nobody knows the future. And I’m ready to change my opinion over and over again when new things come out.
But this is where we are now.
If you have been feeling overwhelmed, don’t be. But give it a try. It’s easier than you can imagine to set it up – You don’t have to watch a single tutorial online.
I hope this message can calm your nervous system a bit.
Things will keep changing. That’s the only thing that is certain. But you don’t have to jump on every hype to be on top of it.
Originally published on Substack on 18 September 2026. Subscribe there to get new posts by email.