Guide
The Beginner’s Guide to Cutback: How to use AI in Premiere Pro to edit videos and make captions
What is Cutback?
Cutback is an AI video editing assistant designed to dramatically reduce your time and effort in video editing. From automatic transcription and text-based rough cuts to multi-cam editing, silence removal, animated captions, and background effects — Cutback offers a wide range of advanced tools to help anyone create high-quality videos quickly and easily. By handling repetitive editing tasks, Cutback lets creators focus more on creativity and storytelling.
On this page, you'll learn:
✅ The key benefits of using Cutback in Premiere Pro 👍
✅ How to use Cutback’s features in the most effective order ✔️
✅ Frequently asked questions 💬
Key Benefits of Using Cutback
Auto rough cut — The AI assistant transcribes the video and intelligently analyzes the content to generate a rough cut. It can reduce time-consuming repetitive tasks such as removing silences and redundant sections. You can also ask it to keep only the best takes, find highlights, or shorten your video—all automatically.
Text-based editing — In a typical workflow, you have to carefully watch the entire video to understand and edit it. With Cutback, you can instantly understand the content through AI-generated transcriptions and summaries. You can also cut the video simply by reading and selecting parts of the transcript—no more scrubbing through footage repeatedly.
Accurate transcription — No need to export your video from Premiere Pro and use a separate tool to generate subtitles. With Cutback, you can create high-accuracy subtitles with transcription directly inside Premiere Pro.
Simply add visual effects — You can handle animated captions, background effects, animated graphics, and even stock images or video searches all within a single tool—no need to switch between Premiere Pro, Photoshop, or After Effects.
How to Use Cutback's Features: Step-by-Step Guide
Step 1. Review the Original Footage
Go to the [Auto rough cut] menu and click [Transcribe video to auto rough cut] to generate captions. Use the smart summary to quickly understand the video content. For more details, refer to the guide.
Step 2. Quickly Find Unnecessary Segments with AI
Use the [Ask assistant] feature at the bottom of the [Auto rough cut] menu to generate a rough cut with AI. For more details, refer to the guide.
TIP: Start by selecting [Remove silences] to eliminate pauses between spoken phrases.
Then, depending on the type of video or editing style you want, choose the appropriate next step.
Step 3. Make Additional Edits Using Text
In [Rough cut] mode, review and refine the AI-generated rough cut. For more details, refer to the guide.
Step 4. Add Captions
Switch to [Edit Captions] mode to format your captions.
Set line length, punctuation, and whether to display single or double-line captions. (see guide)
Translate captions into over 30 languages. (see guide)
Create animated captions with visual effects instead of standard Premiere captions. (see guide)
Step 5. Apply Effects and Enhancements
Add motion effects without switching to After Effects. (see guide)
Search and add photos, videos, or GIFs directly from within Premiere Pro. (see guide)
Use AI image editing tools to quickly edit images inside Premiere. (see guide)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Adobe Premiere Pro required to use Cutback?
Yes, Cutback is currently an Adobe Premiere Pro extension (plugin), so Premiere Pro is required. Support for other apps like Final Cut Pro, Davinci Resolve, or developing a standalone app is under consideration.
Which version of Premiere Pro is supported?
For a fully functional editing experience with Cutback, Adobe Premiere Pro 2023 and later versions is required. Some features may not work in lower versions and beta versions.
I've installed it, but the [Extension] menu is not activated.
After installation, please restart Premiere and select a project to work on in Premiere Pro. The menu should then be activated.
Are there any limits on transcription usage?
For Starter: You can transcribe up to 3 videos per month, with a maximum of 30 minutes per video.
For Lite, Basic, Pro: You can transcribe up to 3 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours of videos per month respectively. Check out the subscription plans page for more detail.
Important notes:
Unused transcription hours do not accumulate to the next period.
Misusing Cutback for purposes other than video editing will result in restrictions, as outlined in our terms of service.
For Enterprise users, limits may vary depending on the contract.
How do I unsubscribe?
Go to Cutback dashboard, select 'Billing info' menu, and change your subscription settings in the 'Plan' section.