Until today you had to choose. A local project kept your footage on your own computer, but the AI could not help with it. A cloud project had the AI, but your files had to be uploaded first.
A lot of you told us that was the wrong choice to force. The footage people most want to keep private, client work under NDA, unreleased product shots, interviews, family video, is often the footage that takes the longest to edit. So we changed it.
What you can do now
Open a local project in the Arsaze desktop app and work with the AI the same way you would in any project:
- Ask it to cut the dead air, tighten a talking head, or find the best take.
- Ask what is on screen at a moment, who is speaking, or where a product appears, and get an answer that comes from your actual footage.
- Edit by transcript, generate captions, and build titles and motion graphics in Animate.
- Generate b-roll, images, video, voiceover, music and sound effects into the project.
- Clean up a voice, dub a clip into another language, or clone a voice from a clip.
- Connect Claude, or another assistant you use, and let it work on the local project too.
What stays on your computer
Your video, audio and images stay on your computer. They are not uploaded to your Arsaze storage and they do not count toward it.
When the AI needs to see or hear part of a clip to do what you asked, it works with just that moment, and nothing is kept afterwards. For the jobs that are about sound, like dubbing or cleaning up a voice, only the sound of that clip is used. Your files themselves never leave your machine.
You stay in control
AI access is on by default for local projects, because it is your own assistant working on your own project. You can switch it off for any project from the Local badge at the top of the editor, or switch it off for everything on one computer. With it off, the project works exactly as local projects always have.
Transcripts in every language
Every clip with speech in a local project now gets a transcript, because the transcript is what the AI edits by. English is still transcribed on your computer for free. Other languages, and speech that is hard to make out, are transcribed from the sound of the clip in the cloud, which uses credits.
What still needs the cloud
Two things still need a cloud project: sharing a review link with someone else, and exporting in the cloud. Export on your own computer works as before, free and with no watermark. If you want a single file to be used as a reference for a generation, you can send just that one file to the cloud from the media panel.
Local projects are still unlimited on every plan, and you still need an internet connection while you edit.
Try it
Update the Arsaze desktop app, open a local project and ask the assistant for an edit. The full picture of what stays private is on the private video editor page.
Questions people ask
Can AI edit a video in Arsaze without uploading the footage?
Yes. In an Arsaze local project your video, audio and images stay on your computer and are not uploaded, and the Arsaze assistant, or Claude and other assistants you connect, can still edit the project with you.
Does the AI keep anything from my local files?
No. When the AI needs to see or hear part of a clip to do what you asked, it works with just that moment, and nothing is kept afterwards.
Can I turn AI off for a local project?
Yes. AI access can be switched off for any local project, or for everything on one computer, from the Local badge in the Arsaze editor.
Can I connect Claude to an Arsaze local project?
Yes. Claude and other assistants connected to Arsaze can work on local projects as well as cloud projects.
What still needs a cloud project in Arsaze?
Sharing a review link and exporting in the cloud. Editing with AI, generation, transcripts and exporting on your own computer all work in a local project.