If you’ve ever opened the Instagram Reels editor, selected a pile of videos, and immediately decided that posting might not be worth the trouble, Instagram would like to prevent that particular creative crisis.
On Aug. 25, the platform globally launched First Draft, a new one-tap editing tool that turns several videos into a short, fully edited Reel in under 10 seconds.
The process starts the same way as making any other Reel: You select the videos you want to use from your camera roll. But instead of pressing “Next” and manually cutting them down, you can tap the new “First draft” button.
Credit: Instagram
From there, Instagram’s model works through three steps: analyzing the clips, identifying their highlights, and trimming them to reduce the overall length. It then delivers a complete cut that users can preview, continue adjusting, add music to, or move directly to Instagram’s usual posting screen.
Credit: Instagram
The cuts can be pretty substantial. In an example shared with Mashable, First Draft condensed four minutes and 54 seconds of footage into a 17-second Reel featuring highlights from several rollerblading videos.
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The idea isn’t to let Instagram make every creative decision for you. Instead, First Draft handles some of the repetitive work of finding usable moments and cutting them together, while still giving creators the option to change its selections before posting. Basically, it eliminates some of the “staring at your camera roll and questioning your life” portion of the process.
Credit: Instagram
First Draft is also built directly into Instagram’s existing Reels creation flow, so creators won’t have to move their footage into another app to use it. That separates the tool from Edits, Instagram’s standalone video editor, which offers more advanced features, including a frame-accurate timeline, storyboards, effects, and performance insights.
Instagram said it created First Draft because manual clip trimming can be “tedious and frustrating” for creators. “Instead of staring down a collection of clips and figuring out where to start, creators can use First Draft to quickly get to a starting point and then make the edit their own from there,” the company told Mashable. They added that the tool is beneficial for creators with accessibility needs.
Credit: Instagram
The launch is the latest example of Instagram trying to make short-form video production require slightly less production. The platform already offers customizable Reel templates, while Edits includes tools such as automatic enhancements, captions, and AI-powered video effects.
First Draft can analyze your footage, find the highlights, and transform nearly five minutes of video into something short enough for the Reels feed. You’ll still need to decide whether the internet actually needs to see it. Instagram has not yet invented a one-tap solution for that.
