Instagram launches Edits on Mac with MCP support for AI-assisted video editing

Instagram brings Edits to the desktop

Instagram has launched a desktop version of Edits, its short-form video editing app, with the first release available on macOS. The company announced the app on Thursday, describing it as built for more complex projects that benefit from a larger screen, a mouse and a keyboard, according to TechCrunch.

The launch puts Edits into closer competition with ByteDance's CapCut, the editor Instagram originally targeted when it brought Edits to mobile last year. As TechCrunch notes, CapCut has offered desktop apps for Windows and Mac since 2021.

An MCP server lets AI agents do the editing

The most technically interesting piece of the desktop release is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that exposes the tools inside Edits Desktop to outside AI agents. Matthew Simari, Instagram's head of product management for Edits, told The Verge that creators can connect "any agent you want" to the app — Meta's own Muse agent included — and have it edit, tweak and work with their video.

Simari described a workflow in which users can go back and forth between agentic and manual editing. His example: a creator asks Muse to pull a clip from their downloads folder, and the agent uses the Edits MCP to make the tool calls and produce a rough cut, which can then be opened in Edits for hands-on refinement.

The desktop release builds on AI work already in the mobile app. According to The Verge, Instagram added an AI creative assistant to the mobile version of Edits in September, which offers video suggestions and feedback based on data from a creator's Instagram account, such as views and retention.

A fuller editing toolkit

Beyond the AI hooks, the desktop app is a step up in editing capability. The Verge reports it includes a full multi-track timeline, precise audio waveforms, more advanced color grading tools, and keyboard shortcuts that can be carried over from another editor. TechCrunch adds that it supports keyframes for transitions, automatic captions in multiple languages, licensed and royalty-free music and effects, and the ability to import custom font files.

Audio and text styles saved in the mobile app sync to desktop, and both versions share access to Instagram's audio library. Creators can also publish directly to Instagram from the desktop editor, with native features like tagging and location — removing the awkward loop of editing on desktop, downloading the file, moving it to a phone and making further adjustments before posting.

Edits Desktop supports multiple aspect ratios, covering both horizontal and vertical video, and offers watermark-free exports in 4K resolution for use on other platforms or for personal projects.

Brett Westervelt, head of Edits, summed up the rationale in a blog post cited by TechCrunch: "A lot of creators have described the same moment to us: a project gets too big for your phone."

Current limits

The desktop app is macOS-only for now, with no Windows or Linux versions available. Projects also cannot yet be edited across both mobile and desktop, though The Verge reports that Instagram is working on cross-platform editing and plans to update the desktop app weekly. Instagram says it will keep investing in the mobile app, which TechCrunch reports is used by more than 50 million creators.

Why it matters

The release matters on two fronts. Competitively, Instagram is closing the biggest gap it had against CapCut — the absence of a desktop editor — at a time when Instagram is pushing longer, widescreen video that is far easier to cut on a large screen. Strategically, the MCP integration is an early mainstream example of agentic editing: rather than AI features bolted onto a conventional interface, external agents can drive a real production tool through a standard protocol. If that pattern catches on, the choice of editor may increasingly depend on which tools an AI agent can actually operate — and Instagram has just made its editor one of them.