As I watch through my computer screen, Tom Bender, the product lead for Instagram’s Edits, places a finger on his smartphone and the software traces an outline around a chubby cat from some meme video. He then takes the furry cutout and drops it over an existing video of himself within the Edits app, adjusting the animal’s opacity to make the cat slightly see-through and ensuring that his own visage in the background stays visible.
This ability to fine-tune overlay opacities was just one of many new and upcoming features he demonstrated in a recent app walkthrough for WIRED. While the Instagram platform was first known for photography, it’s now dominated by video. The new Edits app serves as a companion to Instagram, but one that gives the next generation of video creators all the tools they need to make Reels.
Edits launched last month on Apple and Android devices, after months of delays. Meta, which owns Instagram, is putting Edits forward as a challenger to ByteDance’s CapCut app. That mobile video editing tool, designed to support TikTok creators, was released internationally in 2020 and has become the default choice for creating videos on your phone.
Although Edits initially squeaked past CapCut on Apple’s free downloads charts during release week, the app now sits outside of the 100 most downloaded apps on iOS. It sits far below its main competitor, which is comfortably positioned in the top 10. (Meta declined to share current usage numbers or other statistics for Edits.)
Bender knows he needs to make the app more attractive to creators. So, what’s his plan? Iteration, iteration, iteration.
“We launched a minimum viable product,” he says. “I think the most important thing, from our perspective, is to listen to creators and just launch great features every month or every week.” More video effects and filters are rolling out now. Soon, you’ll be able to adjust the volume across all of the clips in a project. In the next few weeks, an in-app teleprompter—so creators can look right at the camera as they’re reading scripts—is set to drop.
With Edits, Instagram isn’t trying to usurp powerful desktop video editing tools like Adobe Premiere and Final Cut. Rather the developers are targeting anyone looking for better ways to craft social media videos on their smartphone. Bender touts Edits’ preproduction tools, such as the existing Inspiration tab for finding video ideas and saving trending Reels, as an example of Instagram integrations designed with mobile video editors in mind. “Creators will have a long Notes app file or DM threads where they send examples of videos,” he says. “There’s not a great way to keep track of all your ideas today.” After posting, users can see insights into how the video performed on Instagram Reels inside of the Edits app.
Social media video creators rarely post their work on just a single platform; they’ll edit in one app (typically CapCut) and post to TikTok, Instagram, X, and elsewhere. So why should they consider switching to Edits from software they’re familiar with, beyond the Instagram integrations?