As of 13 August 2026, AI can turn a long video into social media clips.

What to actually do

1. Do it yourself

   The route this page recommends

   A chat interface, no skill needed, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open VEED or another AI video editor and upload the long video you own or have permission to use.
   2. Choose the target platform, such as TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts, and set the intended aspect ratio and maximum clip length.
   3. Paste the prompt and replace each bracketed instruction with your audience, aim, quantity, length, tone and branding details.
   4. Ask the tool to transcribe the video and propose the clips before committing to a final edit.
   5. Open the proposed clips and compare every cut, spoken quote and caption with the original video, correcting timestamps and words that are wrong.
   6. Check that faces, text and other important content remain visible after vertical reframing, and remove any music or footage you do not have permission to publish.
   7. Export the checked clips, write or edit the platform captions, and publish only the versions that match your intended audience and tone.

   Prompt

   I own or have permission to use the attached long video. Turn it into a set of social media clips for [PLATFORM]. The audience is [AUDIENCE], and the aim is [AIM].
   
   Find the strongest self-contained moments, prioritising clear openings, useful or entertaining content, and moments that make sense without the rest of the video. Produce [NUMBER] clips, each between [MINIMUM] and [MAXIMUM] seconds where the source allows it.
   
   For each proposed clip, give me:
   1. A short title.
   2. The exact start and end time from the source video.
   3. The first spoken line and the main point.
   4. Why it could work for this audience.
   5. A caption suitable for the platform.
   
   Do not invent words, events, claims or timestamps. Keep the speaker's meaning and wording. Flag any section where the audio, transcript or context is uncertain. Recommend vertical reframing where appropriate, keeping faces and important on-screen content visible. Suggest accurate burned-in captions, but mark words that need checking against the audio. Do not add copyrighted music, images or footage. Use this tone: [TONE]. Follow these brand details: [BRAND COLOURS, FONT OR OTHER RULES]. Return the clips in priority order and include a final checklist of anything I must verify before publishing.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.