The new editing feature analyzes your selected clips, trims the pauses, and lays them out on an editable timeline in under 10 seconds — every cut reversible before you post.
2026-08-25 · by Moe Ameen
On August 25, 2026, Instagram announced First Draft, an editing tool that automatically assembles a rough cut of a Reel from your raw clips. You select multiple clips — from the Instagram camera while recording, or from the Reels gallery afterward — tap First Draft, and it analyzes the footage, trims the dead space and pauses, and lays the trimmed clips onto an editable timeline. Instagram says it produces a first pass in under 10 seconds; in one example the company showed, it condensed nearly five minutes of rollerblading footage into a roughly 17-second Reel.
Every decision is reversible. Once First Draft hands you the timeline, you can reorder clips, adjust individual cuts, add music, or keep editing before anything posts — it is a starting point, not a finished export. Instagram framed the goal as saving creators editing time and making video creation more approachable for people who are not comfortable with editing software. The feature is rolling out on iPhone first; Instagram has not announced Android availability.
Notably, Instagram has not branded First Draft as an AI feature. Reporting indicates Meta classifies the underlying technology as machine learning rather than "AI," so it is best understood as smart automation than as a generative model. It arrives in a crowded lane — Adobe Firefly's Quick Cuts and CapCut's Auto Cut already do automated rough-cutting — but building it directly into Instagram's camera reduces the need to route raw footage through a separate editor before posting. Treat exact rollout timing and any behavior beyond what Instagram has confirmed as subject to change.
First Draft is Instagram pulling the editing step inside its own walls — useful, until you remember most creators post the same footage to more than one place. A first-cut Reel is one asset for one platform. It will not become a TikTok with a different hook, a YouTube Short with its own caption, a LinkedIn clip, or anything that is not a video. That fan-out is what [Kompozy](/) is built for. Take the raw footage — or the Reel First Draft assembled — drop it into Kompozy as a source, and its [Clipped Shorts](/glossary/content-repurposing) cut the footage into three or four separate vertical hooks with burned-in captions, each reframed to 9:16, 1:1, or 16:9 for the platform it is headed to.
Because Kompozy is a generation and publishing engine, one shoot does not stop at video. The same source becomes a brand-exact [Carousel](/glossary/hyperframes), a [Persona Short](/glossary/persona-shorts) where a face-locked avatar re-delivers the message, quote graphics, a blog write-up, and an email newsletter — all held to one voice by a [Persona Brief](/glossary/persona-brief). Then [Autopilot](/glossary/autopilot) schedules the whole set across the eight social platforms plus blog and email, each asset clearing a per-post review gate first. First Draft gets you a fast first cut on Instagram; Kompozy turns that same footage into a week of posts everywhere else.
First Draft is an Instagram editing tool announced August 25, 2026 that automatically assembles a rough cut of a Reel from your selected raw clips. It trims pauses and dead space and lays the clips onto an editable timeline in under 10 seconds, leaving every cut reversible before you post.
Select multiple clips — from the Instagram camera while recording, or from the Reels gallery afterward — and tap First Draft. It trims and arranges them on a timeline you can reorder, re-cut, and add music to before posting. It is rolling out on iPhone first.
Instagram has not branded First Draft as an AI feature; reporting indicates Meta classifies the technology as machine learning rather than "AI." In practice it is automated editing — smart trimming and assembly of footage you shot — not a generative model that creates new video.
It produces one first-cut Reel for Instagram. It does not reframe the video for TikTok or YouTube Shorts, write a per-platform caption, generate other formats like carousels or a newsletter, or publish anywhere but Instagram. A tool like Kompozy handles that cross-platform repurposing and scheduling.