OpusClip wants creators to embrace AI–so its latest tool makes B-roll automatic

When we talk to creators, we hear from lots of people who have entire teams working on content production with them. Then there are those who don’t have entire teams, but do have an editor or two helping them out. And then there are the creators who, for any number of reasons, are going it solo, doing all their scripting, filming, and editing themselves.

Those are the kinds of creators OpusClip is targeting.

Founded in 2022 by CEO Grace Wang, Jay W., and Young Z., OpusClip has a core flagship product that uses artificial intelligence to take creators’ long-form video and cut them down into short-form videos the company says are tuned for virality.

Wang, W., and Z. say they were inspired to co-found OpusClip when they saw ChatGPT‘s growing usage and “realized that AI had reached a crucial turning point–signaling the dawn of a new era of video content creation.”

They say that ideally, OpusClip will “democratize video content creation, making it accessible to anyone with a story to tell or a passion to share–not just those with expertise in video editing.”

Since putting out its flagship tool (called “ClipGenius“), OpusClip has introduced a handful of supplementary features, including an AI “virality score” generator, which judges clips by how likely they are to be a hit on socials, and active speaker detection, which auto-focuses the camera on whoever is speaking and centers them in frame.

So far, it’s had over one million people sign up to use its tools, OpusClip says.

It’s hoping to bring in more creators with its next tool: a B-roll finder that will automatically scrape video footage from Pexels and insert it into creators’ videos where it’s relevant.

“Based on the video clips we generated for you [using ClipGenius], our AI model will try to understand, what are the topics discussed in this clip, and then identify relevant keywords,” Libby Li

, OpusClip’s head of product, tells Tubefilter. “The AI will use that keyword, that topic, to search for stock video footage. It will compliment the storytelling and make the clip more visually engaging for the audience.”

So, an education-focused creator might have a section where they’re talking about the cultural impact of a particular painter’s works. In response, OpusClip’s tool will scrape Pexels for stock B-roll of someone painting.

Li and her team spent about a month developing this tool–a timeframe she says is longer than usual for OpusClip.

For now, creators don’t have control over which keywords the tool uses to search for B-roll. They can ask the tool to try finding another clip if the one it brings up isn’t to their liking, but more control over what the tool searches for and where it inputs the B-roll it finds will come in a future update.

OpusClip also plans to add the ability for creators to upload their own B-roll, so they can have a mix of footage they took and footage from stock libraries.

Li says OpusClip is ultimately working toward a generative version of this tool where it will collage together B-roll instead of pulling existing, person-made footage from Pexels or other libraries.

“We are going toward this approach where we have AI do all the heavy lifting for you, and then you just need to customize like 5% of the work,” Li says. “In that sense, this feature definitely is something we think is the most exciting, and a great value add for creators who are seeking more advanced editing that’s more professional-looking.”