Adobe is adding another AI-powered shortcut to its creative toolkit.
The company has introduced Quick Cut inside the Firefly video editor. It is a feature designed to automatically assemble a first draft of a video using your raw footage and simple text instructions.
Instead of manually arranging clips and transitions on a timeline, users can now describe what they want in natural language. Quick Cut will then sift through the uploaded footage and B-roll. It will remove irrelevant sections, arrange selected takes, and add suitable transition shots to create a rough cut. The goal isn’t a finished product, but a structured starting point that editors can refine.
The tool works directly inside Firefly’s video editor. Through the prompt box, users can define details like aspect ratio, pacing between transitions, and whether optional B-roll should be included. Quick Cut can be applied to an entire project, a specific timeline, or just selected clips. Therefore, creators have a degree of control over how much automation they want.
Adobe is clear that this isn’t meant to replace editing. The first draft still requires adjustments, manual trimming, and creative decisions to bring everything together. But the company says it’s targeting the more repetitive parts of video production. For instance, tasks like organising selects and building an initial story structure will be automated to speed up turnaround times.
The update builds on Adobe’s recent push into prompt-based editing. In December, the company launched a timeline-based editor that treats video elements as layers and allows adjustments using text prompts. This was alongside traditional tools like resize and rotate. Firefly also now supports prompt-based tweaks to video elements, colours and camera angles. Additionally, it comes paired with a timeline view for frame-by-frame adjustments.
