77.5% of ACE Editors in Avid's Survey Use AI, Led by Transcription and Audio Cleanup

Avid surveyed 120 members of American Cinema Editors and found that 77.5% already use AI somewhere in post-production, according to Variety. The top uses are transcription, audio cleanup and searching hundreds of hours of footage for specific shots, the manual prep work that surrounds the creative cut.

• Transcription is the top use at 60%. Audio cleanup follows at 55%, and searching for specific shots across a project's footage comes in at 39.2%.
• Very few want AI building cuts. Only 7.5% of respondents said they want AI to help assemble shots or rough cuts.
• Concerns still hold editors back. Ethical, copyright and security concerns made up nearly 50% of the barrier to using AI in Avid's data.
• Shot search changed a MasterChef workflow. Editor Molly Shock said that on some days, half a day's work dropped to 15 minutes.

Editors hand AI the media and metadata chores while keeping creative decisions

The sample came from the roughly 1,200-member American Cinema Editors.

The survey itself comes from editing software maker Avid, the company behind Media Composer and Pro Tools.

Beyond the top three uses, respondents use AI to generate specific shots that help producers identify what footage they still need to capture, and to tag the details of specific shots.

Matt Feury, Avid's vice president of artist relations, helped lead the survey. "Nobody grows up saying 'I dream of sinking dailies one day,'" he told Variety.

Feury said editors use AI "to minimize the amount of manual stuff that they have to do," pointing to "the media management, the metadata management," rather than using it for creative decisions.

Avid ran the survey to test anecdotes it had heard about editors resisting AI, and Feury said the results showed the opposite. He said editors "are always exploring new avenues, new technologies," adding, "They're not really afraid to try things."

On MasterChef, AI shot search cut some days' half-day workload to 15 minutes

Emmy-nominated editor Molly Shock said her team on MasterChef had access to AI tools for the first time on one season. Producers needed a shot of a contestant looking at a clock for a time check.

In past seasons, finding a shot like that could take several hours of scouring "thousands and thousands of hours" of footage. With AI, editors located multiple examples within seconds.

"It's smart enough that it recognizes who the contestants are," Shock said. She framed the gain as time rather than speed: "I wouldn't say I'm more efficient." The freed time goes to "the really fun part of editing, the real creative stuff."

Shock said some of her peers aren't eager to learn more tools, but many want to keep up with the technology to stay hireable as Hollywood jobs grow scarcer. "We do recognize it's not going away," she said. "You adapt or die."

Only 7.5% want AI assembling cuts, and editors want a say in how it's used

Nearly 100% of daily or weekly AI users in Avid's editor insight report said AI should only enhance the creative vision of their projects.

Shock said editors want to learn the tools but don't want a new system that "completely eradicates any kind of growth." She wants editors "included in the conversation of how it's going to be used," rather than treated as a "button-pusher" who can be swapped out for a program.

Avid's browser-based Media Composer targets the same prep work

In its Google Cloud partnership announcement, Avid cited a survey of professional editors in which 79% reported using AI, with transcription again the top use at 60%. Avid says 87% of those editors agree AI is most valuable when it helps them reach their creative intentions more efficiently, and 63% say AI tools need tighter workflow integration to be useful.

The tools in that announcement aim at the same chores editors named. Browser-based Media Composer runs in Chrome, and Avid's Ready to Edit features let editors use natural language prompts to sync media, transcribe and align dialogue, and organize bins.

Avid Content Core uses Google Cloud's Gemini Enterprise to generate transcripts and semantic descriptions as media is imported, so teams can find clips through natural language search. A Gemini panel inside Media Composer can also generate B-roll, find stock footage, and add tagging, logging or translation to media.