Whether you can legally edit a client's footage in an AI tool comes down to one thing: what that tool's terms say it can do with what you upload. The tools split cleanly. Some, like Adobe and Descript, state in writing that they never train AI on your content. Others, like Runway and CapCut, reserve a broad license to use your uploads the moment you hit send. If your client footage is under an NDA, that difference is the whole game, and most editors never read far enough to notice it.
The short version: it depends on the tool's terms
When you upload footage to a cloud AI editor, you are disclosing it to a third party. In contract language, that tool is a subprocessor, and whether the disclosure is allowed depends on two documents: your NDA with the client, and the tool's own terms about what it does with your data. Get both right and you are fine. Ignore either and you can be in breach without ever intending to share anything.
What cloud AI video tools actually do with your footage
The honest answer is that it varies, and you can prove it from the tools' own terms.
The tools that commit not to train on your content:
- Adobe: "Your content is yours and will never be used to train any generative AI tool," and Adobe says it has "never trained generative AI on customer content" (Adobe). Firefly is "only trained on a dataset of licensed content with permission, such as Adobe Stock, and public domain content" (same source). Adobe published this after a June 2024 terms update spooked users into thinking it would mine their work.
- Descript: its production AI models "use no Descript user data," it does not sell your project information, and sharing your transcription to improve the service "is disabled by default and can only be enabled by you" ().
