Learn how to edit videos with AI using Claude Code — no skills needed. A complete beginner’s guide to AI video editing tools, step by step.
If you’ve ever spent hours cutting, trimming, and adjusting a video — only to feel like you wasted your entire day — you’re not alone.
Traditional video editing is slow, expensive, and needs a steep learning curve. Most beginners give up before they even finish their first video.
But what if you could edit videos with AI — just by typing what you want in plain English?
That’s exactly what Claude Code lets you do. No timeline. No drag and drop. No expensive software. Just type your instruction and AI does the rest.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to edit videos with AI using Claude Code — step by step, even if you have zero technical background.
Traditional vs AI Video Editing:
Most people think video editing means opening Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro, dragging clips on a timeline, and spending hours on a single video. That’s traditional editing — and it works, but it comes at a cost.
Here’s how traditional editing compares to AI video editing tools like Claude Code:
| Traditional Editing | AI Video Editing | |
|---|---|---|
| Tool | Premiere Pro, Final Cut | Claude Desktop App |
| How it works | Click, drag, cut manually | Type in plain English |
| Skill needed | High | Zero |
| Time taken | Hours | Minutes |
| Cost | $55/month (Adobe) | $20/month (Claude Pro) |
| Who can do it | Editors only | Anyone |
The result is the same — a clean, edited video. The path is just completely different.
Tools You Need to Edit Videos with AI
Before we start, you only need 3 things. No complicated software. No paid subscriptions except Claude Pro.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AI Video Editing Setup │
├─────────────────┬───────────────────────────────┤
│ Homebrew │ App Store for Terminal │
│ (brew.sh) │ Installs Python, FFmpeg, Git │
├─────────────────┼───────────────────────────────┤
│ Claude App │ The AI brain │
│ (claude.com) │ Understands your commands │
├─────────────────┼───────────────────────────────┤
│ ElevenLabs │ Transcription engine │
│ (elevenlabs.io)│ Reads & understands your video│
└─────────────────┴───────────────────────────────┘
Homebrew
Homebrew is like an App Store but for your Terminal. You install it once and then use it to download everything else — Python, FFmpeg, Git, and uv — all with simple one-line commands.
Get it from brew.sh.
Think of Homebrew as the foundation. Everything else is built on top of it.
Claude Desktop App
Claude Desktop App is the AI you’ll talk to for editing your videos. You type your instruction — like “remove all silences” — and Claude figures out how to do it automatically.
Download it free from claude.com/download. You’ll need a Claude Pro subscription ($20/month) to access the Code tab where all the video editing happens. You can watch Claude AI Full tutorial here (optional) : https://kukucourses.com/course/free-course-claude-ai-course-complete-claude-for-beginners/.
ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs is not a tool you download. It’s a website where you create a free account and get an API key — a unique code that lets Claude transcribe your video word by word.
Without this, Claude cannot understand what’s being said in your video and cannot make precise cuts.
Sign up free at elevenlabs.io → go to Settings → API Keys → copy your key.
You can watch my ElevenLabs tutorial course here https://kukucourses.com/course/free-course-elevenlabs-ai-elevenlabs-creatives-agents-and-api/
How to Install Homebrew and Set Up All Tools
Open Terminal on your Mac (press Command + Space → type Terminal → hit Enter) and follow the steps below one by one.
Install Homebrew
Go to brew.sh, copy the command below and paste it in Terminal:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
It will ask for your Mac login password — just type it and hit Enter. The cursor won’t move while typing, that’s normal. Wait for it to finish.
After installation completes, run these 2 commands to activate Homebrew:
echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> ~/.zshrc
eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"
Verify Homebrew is working:
brew --version
You should see something like Homebrew 6.0.4 or latest version you installed ✅
Install Python via PyEnv
Install PyEnv:
brew install pyenv
Set up PyEnv in your Terminal — run these 3 commands one by one:
echo 'export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv"' >> ~/.zshrc
echo '[[ -d $PYENV_ROOT/bin ]] && export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
echo 'eval "$(pyenv init - zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc
Verify the lines were added:
cat ~/.zshrc
Restart Terminal:
exec "$SHELL"
Check PyEnv is working:
pyenv --version
Install Python 3.11.12:
pyenv install 3.11.12
Set it as default:
pyenv global 3.11.12
Verify Python is working:
python --version
You should see Python 3.11.12 ✅
Install Git, uv and FFmpeg
Install Git — needed to download the video-use skill from GitHub:
brew install git
Install uv — installs all video-use skill dependencies:
brew install uv
Install FFmpeg — the engine that actually processes your video files:
brew install ffmpeg
Verify all tools are working:
git --version
uv --version
ffmpeg -version
All should show version numbers ✅
Install Claude Desktop App
Go to claude.com/download and download the Claude Desktop App for Mac. Install it like any normal Mac app — open the downloaded file and drag it to your Applications folder.
Once installed, open Claude and sign in with your Anthropic account.
You will need a Claude Pro subscription ($20/month) to access the Code tab. Once signed in you will see 3 tabs at the top:
Chat Cowork Code
Click on Code — this is where all the video editing happens.
Install video-use Skill
The video-use skill is what teaches Claude how to edit videos. Without it Claude has no idea what to do with your video file.
First create the skills folder:
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
Creates the skills directory where Claude looks for all installed skills.
Now download the video-use skill from GitHub:
git clone https://github.com/browser-use/video-use ~/Developer/video-use
Downloads the entire video-use skill folder to your Mac.
Now link it to Claude:
ln -sfn ~/Developer/video-use ~/.claude/skills/video-use
Connects the video-use skill to Claude so it can find and use it automatically.
Now install the skill’s dependencies:
cd ~/Developer/video-use
uv sync
Installs all the Python packages the video-use skill needs to work.
Verify the skill is loaded — open Claude Desktop App → Code tab → New session → type:
what skills do you have access to?
You should see video-use in the list ✅
Add ElevenLabs API Key
ElevenLabs is what transcribes your video — it listens to the audio and converts it to text word by word. Without this key Claude cannot understand what’s being said in your video.
Go to elevenlabs.io → create a free account → click API Keys in the left sidebar → click + Create Key.
On the Create API Key panel:
- Give it any name (example: “video-use”)
- Click Access next to Speech to Text only
- Leave everything else as “No Access”
- Click Create Key
- Copy the key immediately — you won’t see it again after closing
Now add the key to the video-use skill. Run these commands in Terminal:
cd ~/Developer/video-use
cp .env.example .env
Creates a new environment file from the example template.
nano .env
Opens the file in Terminal editor. You will see:
ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=
Add your key after the = so it looks like:
ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
Then press Control + X → Y → Enter to save.
Free plan gives you ~30 minutes of video transcription per month — enough to learn and practice. No credit card needed.
Verify everything is working
Open Claude Desktop App → Code tab → New session → drag your video file into the chat → type:
transcribe this video
If Claude transcribes your video successfully — the entire setup is complete and working ✅
What Can You Edit with AI Video Editing
Once everything is set up, you just type what you want in plain English. Here’s everything the video-use skill can do:
Cut and Trim Clips
Remove filler words, awkward pauses, and pick the best takes automatically. Just type:
remove all silences from this video
cut the first 10 seconds
trim this video to 60 seconds
Auto Transcription
Get a word-by-word transcript of your entire video with timestamps. Useful for repurposing content into blog posts, captions, or scripts.
transcribe this video
Add Subtitles Automatically
Generate and burn subtitles directly into your video. Claude handles timing, placement and styling automatically.
add subtitles to this video
add bold white subtitles at the bottom
Color Grading
Apply cinematic color grades to make your video look professionally shot.
apply a warm cinematic color grade
make this video look more punchy and bright
Animations and Overlays
Add motion graphics, kinetic text, counters, and data visualizations on top of your video.
add a title animation at the start
add a subscribe reminder overlay at the end
Aspect Ratio Conversion
Convert your video for different platforms in one command.
convert this to vertical 9:16 for Instagram Reels
convert this to square 1:1 for Instagram posts
Full Production Pipeline
Run everything in one go — cut, grade, subtitle, and render.
cut silences, add subtitles, apply warm color grade and export
Download Videos from YouTube
download this YouTube video: [paste URL]
Your First Video Edit
You have completed the full setup. Now let’s do your first real AI video edit.
Step 1 — Download the Test Video
We have prepared a short test video for you to practice with.
👉 Download Test Video for AI Editing
Save it to your Desktop or Downloads folder.
Step 2 — Open Claude Code Tab
Open Claude Desktop App → click the Code tab → click New session.
Step 3 — Drag Your Video In
Drag the downloaded test video directly into the Claude Code chat window.
Step 4 — Paste the Master Prompt
Copy and paste this prompt:
You are a professional video editor. I am giving you a raw video file.
Automatically analyze the video and do the following:
1. Transcribe the full video
2. Remove all silences and filler words
3. Add clean subtitles burned into the video
4. Apply a warm cinematic color grade
5. Export the final edited video
Do everything automatically without asking me any questions.
Just analyze, edit and deliver the final output.
Hit Enter and wait. Claude will automatically analyze your video and deliver a fully edited output — no clicks, no timeline, no technical knowledge needed.
That’s it.
You just edited a video with AI using a single prompt.
This is what used to take hours in Premiere Pro — done in minutes by just typing.
If you want to master Claude AI completely — not just video editing but also the Chat, Claude Code, and Cowork tabs — check out my full Claude AI course on KuKu Courses. You will learn how to use every feature of Claude to save hours of work every single day.
👉 Master Claude AI — Full Course on KuKu Courses
Hope you enjoyed this edit videos with ai blog.
