OpencutAI shipped an AI Co-Pilot that edits videos for scene detection and YouTube chapters.

Hey everyone!

Three major features just landed in OpenCut AI and they all run locally on your machine.

1. AI Co-Pilot Agent

This is the big one. Tell the editor what you want in plain English and it creates a step-by-step plan, then executes it.

Examples:

- "Make this a 60-second vertical reel with captions and trending music"

- "Remove all silences and filler words, then normalize audio for YouTube"

- "Add cinematic color grading and auto-duck the background music under speech"

How it works:

1. You describe your goal

2. The AI analyzes your current project (tracks, clips, transcript, duration)

3. It returns a multi-step editing plan with 19 possible action types

4. You review each step, then click Execute

5. Steps run sequentially with live progress — cancel anytime

We added 6 quick presets for common workflows. The whole thing runs through your local LLM — no cloud, no data leaving your machine.

2. Client-Side Scene Detection

Detect visual scene changes (camera cuts, angle changes, lighting shifts) without sending a single frame to a server.

How it works:

- Extracts frames at configurable intervals (default: every 0.5s)

- Computes 24-bin RGB color histograms for each frame

- Calculates chi-squared distance between consecutive frames

- Flags changes above threshold as scene cuts or dissolves

- Shows before/after thumbnails for each detected scene change

All processing happens in the browser using Canvas API. No backend needed.

3. YouTube Chapters Export

We already had auto-chapter detection (AI analyzes your video and finds topic boundaries). Now you can export them directly in YouTube's `MM:SS Title` format:

```

0:00 Introduction

1:23 Why Privacy Matters

3:45 How to Self-Host

7:12 Q&A

```

One click copies to clipboard. Also generates a full YouTube description with your suggested title, description, chapter timestamps, and tags.

Why this matters

Every feature runs locally. Descript sends your video to AWS. CapCut sends it to ByteDance. Runway sends it to their cloud. OpenCut AI keeps everything on your hardware — your footage, your AI models, your rules.

Self-host on a $20/mo server or run it on your laptop. MIT licensed.

What would you want the Co-Pilot to do next? 🎬