YouTube Edit with AI limits: Shorts app vs Create app

Edit with AI turns raw footage into a finished video with music and effects. In the Shorts camera you upload up to 3 minutes of total assets with a 5-second minimum; in the YouTube Create app YouTube's help page gives 1-25 clips between 5 seconds and 5 minutes. The two pages differ, so check which app you are in.

All numbers below are from YouTube's help pages for creating Shorts and for Create with AI, read 2026-10-02. They are described by YouTube as experimental in places and can change.

What are the Edit with AI limits in each app?

The Shorts help page says you can upload up to 3 minutes in total assets, with a minimum of 5 seconds, then pick from templates for automatic editing. The Create app page says Edit with AI accepts 1-25 clips, with a minimum length of five seconds and a maximum of five minutes, and lists Short lengths of under 15 seconds, 15-30 seconds, or 31-60 seconds.

The pages do not say whether the 5-minute figure is per clip or the combined length, so I have not assumed either.

Where is Edit with AI available?

The Create app page says Edit with AI extends to 13 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Türkiye. It is separate from Gemini Omni and Nano Banana, which the page lists for Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the United States on mobile.

If your country is not listed, the feature may simply not appear. For that case, a file-based route is the fallback.

What does Edit with AI not let you control?

It chooses music and effects from templates. That is the point, but it means you do not set exact in-points, per-clip crops or transition types. The help pages do not describe any such controls, so if you need them you are outside the feature.

Timing control is where Timeline 1.0 differs. You declare one audio spine and an ordered list of video[] slots, each with start, duration and source_in, optional fit (cover, contain, stretch or blur) and a transition from fade, wipeleft, wiperight, slideup, slidedown or dissolve. It renders 1080x1920 MP4 by default.

How would I assemble a similar Short with Sume?

You choose every cut yourself, rather than a template choosing it. Sume does not detect highlights for you in Timeline; Video inspect gives you stills and an optional transcript to decide where to cut.

A two-slot Short with a 0.25 second fade. The audio is a Sume-hosted voice track and both clips must already be media.sume.com URLs:

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/timeline-1.0/render \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: short-assemble-001" \
  -d '{
    "audio": {"url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/voice.wav", "duration_seconds": 24},
    "video": [
      {"source_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/a.mp4", "start": 0, "duration": 12},
      {"source_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/b.mp4", "start": 12, "duration": 12,
       "transition": {"type": "fade", "duration": 0.25}}
    ]
  }'

What does the Sume route cost, and when is it worth it?

The Timeline public rate in the docs is $0.10 per ceil(output minute), so a 24-second Short reserves one minute. Confirm live pricing in GET /v1/catalog. Use POST /v1/timeline-1.0/plan first; it is unbilled and returns duration_seconds, segment_count and billable_minutes.

Edit with AI is the faster choice for a phone-first creator who wants a template. Timeline is the choice when you need repeatable, scripted output. Sume does not publish to YouTube, so you upload the MP4 yourself; size rules are in YouTube Shorts video specs.

Which should I pick?

If you shoot on a phone and want a result in minutes, use Edit with AI in whichever app your country offers. If you are above 3 minutes of assets in the Shorts camera, split the work or use the Create app. If you need fixed timings across a batch, or you are in a country the feature does not cover, use a file route.

Either way, the finished Short must still meet the upload rules: 1080p maximum and up to three minutes, per the Shorts creation page.