Instagram Edits assistant: cut a 7-second reel with Sume video trim

Instagram's Edits assistant post describes a beauty creator whose videos did well after the assistant suggested mixing a 7-second reel in among her 1-minute videos. To cut a 7-second version of a reel you already have, send Sume's POST /v1/video-trim a start and duration: 7; the range can be as short as 0.2 seconds.

The story is from Instagram's Edits assistant announcement, read 2026-10-01. Trim limits are from Sume's Video trim docs. One example is not a rule about what performs.

What did Instagram say?

The assistant is rolling out to everyone using Edits in the US, free with a daily prompt limit. It reads your account's metrics and suggests ideas; the post says the creative calls stay with you. The 7-second example is one creator's result, with no figures given, so treat it as an idea to test and not as a measured effect.

What can trim cut?

A new MP4 holding only [start, end) of one media.sume.com clip; the source is untouched. Import an outside file first with POST /v1/media-imports.

How do I cut seven seconds?

Choose the strongest seven seconds of the 60-second reel, set start to that moment and duration to 7, and send a fresh Idempotency-Key. Poll the job and read video_url from the result.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-trim \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: reel-7s-cut-001" \
  -d '{
    "video_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/reel.mp4",
    "start": 12,
    "duration": 7,
    "output": { "width": 1080, "height": 1920, "fps": 30 }
  }'

Will trim re-frame a landscape clip?

No. output conforms the size and frame rate on the way out; it is not a crop or reframe step, which the docs place on other surfaces. Start from a vertical source. If you are keeping several versions of a reel, see Format bulk runs and idempotency keys.