First, vibe coding swept the software development and engineering scene off its feet… Now, vibe editing has come to do the same to the video editing industry. Video editors, especially those leveraging AI-powered video editing workflows to boost productivity, are awakening to a new trend.

What is Video Vibe Editing?

‘Vibe editing’ is a new video industry buzzword that stems from the programming term coined first, ‘vibe coding’. Vibe coding is when someone interacts with a code base with natural language and through a series of prompts, as opposed to coding using traditional coding languages. AI then interprets these prompts to code the desired outcome for this person, whether they are technical or not. The ‘vibe’ aspect comes from following your gut or the vibe of a project to get it done, as opposed to following set rules.

The same logic can be applied to video vibe editing. Vibe editing is the application of AI ‘co-editors’, or 'co-agents’, to streamline the video editing workflow. It’s not just about trimming clips or syncing audio. It’s about allowing the editor to embrace the feel of their editing workflow and letting an AI video editor translate that into actual cuts, transitions, and captions.

Think: you tell your AI co-editor (like Cutback - coming soon) that you want a playful, fast-paced intro with punchy captions and b-roll that matches your script. The AI gets to work. This isn’t a static template or one-click filter. It’s dynamic, context-aware, and most importantly, collaborative.

However, in some circles, this has raised the question… Will AI take over video editing jobs, or make editors better?

Traditional Video Editing vs. Vibe Editing

The above table illustrates how vibe editing empowers editors to iterate quickly without sacrificing creative control. You still run the show. The AI just handles the heavy lifting.

The Rise of AI Video Agents & Co-Editors

In the past couple of years, we have seen an increasing shift from traditional video editing to AI-assisted workflows becoming the new norm. Many plugins, including Adobe Premiere Pro plugins such as Cutback, have been reducing the workload of editors by reducing repetitive tasks like scrubbing timelines and trimming clips through AI automated features like Auto Rough Cut.

AI video agents and co-editors can auto-transcribe, rough cut (auto delete repeats/select best takes), auto-generate captions, translate, and now co-edit all in one place, often from a user-friendly chat-based video editing interface.

Key vibe-forward video editing features:

• Auto Rough Cut: Automatically selects the best takes, removes repeats, removes silences, puts together highlights, and cuts based on your script.

• Transcript-based Editing: Edit your video by editing the words of an auto-transcript generated script as opposed to scrubbing a timeline.

• Animated Captions: Add stylistic word-for-word captions with motion presets that match the tone and pace of your video.

• Multicam Editing: Let the AI choose the best angles for you, switching tracks in a single sequence.

These are all practical features, useful features for podcast edits, interview edits, and video creation, too. If you’re looking for an AI editor for YouTube or to edit your TikTok videos, then there’s no better solution. It’s more than automation, it’s augmentation. And that’s where the vibe comes in.

How AI Understands Vibe From Natural Language Understanding (NLU) To Visual Cue Interpretation

Let’s get into the neural guts of it.

When we talk about vibe editing, we’re talking about training an AI to understand things that, until recently, only human editors could feel. Tone. Pacing. Silence. The weight of. a pause. The chaotic joy of jump cuts.

So, how does AI make sense of something as fluid and human as vibe?

It starts with natural language understanding (NLU). When an editor feeds text prompts into a tool like Cutback, the AI doesn’t just read the words—it analyzes meaning. It looks at sentence structure, emotionally weighted words, and contextual phrasing to determine tone. Paired with text-based editing from transcription, the agent can create a video edit based on prompts and cues from the meaning of both.

Next, there’s audio and pacing analysis. The AI listens for silence, speed, and rhythm. Awkward gaps in the waveform? That might be dead air. A sudden peak in pitch? It could be excitement or stress. The AI flags it, but here’s the kicker: you, the editor, still decide what it means. That’s co-editing.

Then there’s visual cue interpretation. AI agents trained on facial recognition models and/or scene edit detection can detect emotional states based on expressions, micro-reactions, and gaze direction. Not only can some agents help with practical features like eye contact correction, but they can also make cuts based on the same cues. It’s not just ‘this person is smiling’, it’s ‘this person is doing a half-smirk while glancing off-camera mid-sentence’. That’s not just metadata. That’s storytelling fuel.

What results is a kind of symbiotic workflow from automated editing.

You shape the emotion. The AI makes the cuts. You nudge the flow. The AI keeps the pace. A vibe co-agent is trained and optimized to think in frames, not just files, giving you endless creative possibilities through AI-assisted editing.

Will AI Replace Video Editors?

There has been much debate surrounding the pros and cons of using AI in video editing and what the future of AI video editing looks like, especially for video editors. Will AI replace video editors, or is that too far-fetched even with progressive technology?

While there is no denying that AI has cut out a lot of the remedial tasks that humans had done before, often for the better, but sometimes perceived as a threat by some… The truth is that this fear, especially in creative industries, is still largely rooted in misunderstanding.

AI tools like Cutback aren’t replacing creatives or their creativity; they’re removing the repetitive, time-consuming steps that stall it. By doing the grunt work with AI, editors spend less time scrubbing timelines to make more time for actual creative decisions and give their final projects a competitive and creative edge in less time.

Vibe editing agents are not designed to replace editors but to increase their productivity by 300%. That is why they are largely called ‘co-editors’, emphasizing the creative collaborative aspect of their operation.

This is a value proposition that Cutback, as a leading AI Adobe Premiere Pro plugin, has stuck to since day one and continues to develop. When Cutback demoed our future vibe video editing agent at VINE (The Video Networking Event) in Oakland in May 2025, video editors on scene couldn’t help but sing the product’s praises.

Stay tuned to Cutback’s Discord for updates about its release!

Who Is Vibe Editing For?

• YouTubers & Creators: Who want to upload faster without losing their voice.

• Professional Video Editors: Working on tight deadlines and with tighter budgets.

• Podcast Editors: Managing multiple cameras, tons of footage, and massive transcripts.

• Brand Content Teams: Needing consistency, speed, and quality.

Whether you’re a one-person show or part of a larger team, vibe editing is about scaling your storytelling, not replacing it.

Vibe editing is more than just a flashy term. It's a practical shift in how we think about co-creation, an AI agent, and human-centered video workflows. As tools like Cutback continue to blur the line between editor and AI, the future of using AI for video editing looks fast, fun, and freakishly intuitive.

So no, AI isn't coming for your job. It’s coming with you to your next editing session.