Where's the line between AI assistance and AI takeover?
Lessons from Adobe Premiere Pro's new search feature
What’s happening?
Adobe introduced AI-powered search in Premiere Pro that lets users find footage using natural language descriptions like "person skating with a lens flare."
Image credit: AdobeHow it works
Import videos and Media Intelligence will automatically recognize objects, locations, and camera angles
Everything is processed locally on your device without sending content for AI training
Enter natural language queries in the search panel
Filter with visuals, text, and metadata to get precise results
Why it matters
Traditionally, video editors spent countless hours manually reviewing and organizing footage through meticulous logging and tagging systems to find what they needed.
By delegating media analysis to AI, editors can focus on more creative storytelling, enhancing both productivity and artistic output.
Key insights
1. Enhancing human creativity
AI doesn’t replace the editor’s creative role.
Keep creative control with users while taking over repetitive and mundane tasks.
Avoid intrusive automation that could frustrate professionals.
2. Prioritizing copyright and privacy for creators
Creators want to protect their original work from being used AI model training.
Ensure user’s content is never used to train any AI models.
Process all AI operations on users' local devices.
3. Making AI invisible and integrated to whole product
The best AI is the one users don’t even notice
Media Intelligence working in the background
Integrate AI within existing search features to maintain a familiar user experience
Reality limits
At this stage, this feature doesn’t recognize audio content. Users have to run AI-powered transcription feature separately to access transcript.
The search cannot detect specific people, emotional expressions (e.g., happiness), or technical characteristics (e.g., stable camera movement or focus).
Worth thinking about:
When you’re dealing with AI features:
Map your product's workflow. Identify which tasks are "mechanical" vs. "creative/strategic”
Which tasks are preventing users from doing their best work?
How can you seamlessly integrate AI into your existing system?