What’s New: Ready to Play for Avid Media Composer

Ready to Play introduces a new creative AI experience for Media Composer, developed by Avid and built with Google Gemini. It is designed for the moments every editor recognizes: there’s a shot missing, maybe you still need to go out and shoot it, maybe it exists in your project but is hard to find, or the visual idea exists in someone’s head but not yet on the timeline. Instead of leaving the edit to chase separate tools, Ready to Play connects AI-assisted creation, analysis, and transformation to the bins, clips, and metadata editors already use.

It is also the first capability in a new Ready To series for Media Composer we previewed at IBC 2026 with Ready to Edit. The idea is simple: give editors practical, production-focused tools that help get them ready for the next creative decision. Ready to Play starts with creative exploration, helping teams create temporary coverage, understand selected footage, and test visual ideas while keeping the editor in control of every choice.

Here’s what’s new with Ready to Play.

Create Video: Keep the cut moving when the shot is not ready

Creative editorial decision making has to keep moving before every final asset is available. A VFX shot may still be in progress. A pickup may not have been filmed. A director may want to see how a rough visual idea plays in context before the team commits to it shooting or building it.

With Create Video, editors can create a new clip from a text prompt or still image and deliver the results directly into a Media Composer bin. The output can act as temporary b-roll, stock-style coverage, a visual reference, or a starting point for creative exploration. The goal is not to replace the final creative process. It is to give teams something concrete to review, discuss, and cut with while the real material is still coming together.

Analyze Video: Turn selected footage into useful metadata

Post teams can spend a huge amount of time simply trying to understand what is in their footage. Useful moments can be buried in hours of unlogged material, especially in documentary, unscripted, sports, and archive-heavy workflows.

Analyze Video helps by analyzing selected clips with supported Gemini models and adding customizable descriptions to clip metadata. Editors and assistants can use that context to support review, organization, and discovery inside Media Composer, reducing the amount of manual description work while keeping people in control of what gets reviewed, accepted, and used.

Modify Video: Explore a change without altering the original

Sometimes the team needs to understand whether a visual change could help the story before committing more time or budget. A background object may distract from the scene. A temporary graphic may be needed for review. A continuity issue may need to be communicated more clearly to a director, producer, or VFX partner.

Modify Video lets editors prompt a visual change to a selected clip and create a new media asset while preserving the original source. Results will vary, and every output still needs editorial review, but the workflow gives teams a practical way to explore a visual direction, communicate intent, or create a placeholder that keeps the conversation moving.

You make the edit

Ready to Play is designed around deliberate editor control. You choose the media, the action, the prompt, the supported model, and the output. The interface identifies the model in use, and the result returns as new media or new metadata for review. It does not automatically edit a sequence, alter original source media, or run across Media Composer in the background.

That distinction matters. Ready to Play is not about handing the edit to AI. It is about giving editors more ways to test and visualize ideas while keeping every editorial decision in human hands.

Developed by Avid. Built with Google Gemini.

Ready to Play brings Google Gemini into Avid Media Composer. Users download and install the extension, connect with an eligible Google account, choose the workflow they want to run, and review the results before deciding what belongs in the edit.

That connection is important because it keeps the AI experience close to the creative work without blurring responsibility. Media sent through Ready to Play is processed by Google services, customers manage applicable Google access, usage, credits, and billing directly, and generated or modified outputs should always be reviewed for quality, rights, and suitability before use.

For editors, this means having more ways to keep the story moving when the next decision depends on media that is missing, unfinished, or difficult to understand. Create something to cut with. Analyze what you already have. Modify a selected clip to explore a visual idea. Then review the result and decide what serves the story.

Ready to Play is just getting started. We’re continuing to build upon its capabilities with future releases coming soon, while keeping the focus on practical uses in the edit—tools that fit the way editors and assistants work in Media Composer. We’ll share more about those additions, and what you can do with them, as they become available.