That smooth, documentary-style presentation for b-roll and still images is finally here. Put on your PBS hat and add the Ken Burns animation to any visual media for a smooth zoom and pan.

It comes with 8-directional settings and a center zoom option.

A random zoom and pan setting will be selected when you initially apply the effect so you don’t necessarily have to choose them yourself if you just want to quickly spice up your background content.

The zoom/pan can be set to:

The Ken Burns effect has 3 speed settings:

You can now use your AI voices directly in conjunction with the Edit for clarity tool. This is great for times where you’re unable to re-record anything based on the suggestions you receive using Edit for Clarity. Just toggle the option labeled , and check off the speakers you’d like to have eligible for edit-for-clarity based word or phrase replacement.

Any parts of the script that will be replaced will be marked in blue.

Sequences,

You can now add rounding to the corners on the background of your text elements.

Corner rounding helps make your visual layout more distinct, clear and professional. Backgrounds can also help make your text easier to read and rounding provides a cleaner look especially when overlaid against contrasting colors in your background.

You can add rounding using this icon:

In addition, there are two new settings under the background option in the layers menu:

There are a few new features releasing today, and they don't even require you to download an app update. We just turned them on.

We’ve added new text animations and animation settings for Title and other text elements.

There are two new presets:

You can also target most animations by word, by line, or by paragraph.

Easing is applied per word, sentence or paragraph. The overall animation is always on a linear easing curve.

You can now apply borders and shadows to all visual layer types including video.

Borders have their own section in the Layer panel, and Shadows will appear under the Effects header. We are also adding Shadows, toggled off, to all visual layers by default for easy access.

By popular request, we have brought back the zoom and pan preset. Zoom and pan animations could always be performed using a Custom animation, but we’re restored the preset version that already has some level of animation set on the ending keyframe.

Drive admins can now view the AI suite usage data for Drive members.

The Drive admin will always be the first on the list, followed by all Editor members so you can keep track of users who are close to hitting their limit for AI suite usage.

We’ll show warnings as your approach your limit, and show any features that require an upgrade to unlock. If you are on a plan without limits for a feature, it will permanently show Unlimited in this panel. We’ll add a counter for Unlimited users for tracking purposes in an upcoming update.

6 new stock voices will be rolling out in the coming days. These voices come with some upgrades which we’ll discuss in more detail in upcoming updates. You can find them in the Stock Speakers menu under these names:

More voices are also releasing in the coming weeks.

Welcome to Descript Season 7 — our love note to video and audio podcasters. We’re launching some new features to help round out your workflows, and highlighting the ways these features integrate seamlessly with our most powerful features for podcasters of all stripes. There’s also some quality of life improvements and of course bug fixes.

Everyone is invited to join us for the Season 7 virtual event, two weeks from today. Save your spot here.

With that out of the way, let's talk about what's new this week.

Descript now has an integrated connection with your Zoom account, allowing you to import Cloud recordings directly into the Editor. We highly recommend reviewing the help center for full details on setup, optimal settings, and troubleshooting options.

Accounts can be connected through the Settings menu → Connected accounts page, or by clicking the Import from Zoom button in a project. You’ll be prompted to verify your Zoom credentials, and once you’ve got the accounts connected you’re all set to start importing.

Clicking the Import from Zoom button will show you a chronological list of all of your Zoom cloud recordings. After import, Descript smartly builds the project into a Sequence file. Any video files that have an embedded audio in addition to an associated audio file will be muted to prevent duplicate audio. A major timesaver for podcasters and educators who record in Zoom.

We’ve added new AI usage trackers to the Settings menu, so you can better monitor your remaining AI suite balances. We’ll show your remaining uses, and when you’re getting close to your limit we’ll highlight the category with an hourglass icon. Advanced AI Suite options are available for Creator plans and above. You can upgrade from this menu with a few clicks if you want to give them a try.

There’s a new intensity slider when using Edit for clarity which increases or decreases the aggressiveness of edits. Use the Heavy setting to remove more filler words and cut more digressions, or use the Low setting for a lighter editing pass.

Rooms is a fully integrated collaborative recorder developed by SquadCast and Descript engineers.

It’s launching as a closed beta during Season 7 which you can sign up for at this link. We’ll also be onboarding users in waves as the beta progresses.

The Rooms recorder brings the best features of SquadCast into Descript, while adding and improving upon the formula. It’s built on a new engine that makes throttling streaming quality in favor of high quality source recordings more flexible and more reliable. Rooms will also include virtual backgrounds, instant imports into Descript, support for joining via mobile, and better file recovery and file integrity protections.

We’ll post updates as the soon as the beta starts rolling out.

You can now use the flatten tracks function on the Web, and in the Desktop preview version of Descript. It runs a bit faster than it does on regular Desktop, and has a progress meter.

The flattened track is built locally, and uploaded once it has completed. We’ll keep the file handy in case you run into connection issues during the uploading phase.

Regenerate can now work over Sequences, neatly re-timing the video content to match the new length of the regenerated speech, just the same way it works when you use it on single file.

Version 95 is a relatively small update that is largely focused on bug fixes, an update on plan limits, and some improvements to Automatic multicam.

The improved Automatic multicam comes with two settings:

The setting allows you to adjust the amount of Cutaways with three options:

We’ve also added a Camera setup tool so you can make sure your Speaker labels are assigned to the correct camera tracks.

Coming soon: the ability to add templates when using the setting.

Our engineers introduced some backend changes that will increase the speed of file uploads when using Descript for Web, or the Desktop Preview version of Descript.

Users on Free, Hobbyist, and EDU plans will encounter some new metering and enforced limits on Underlord actions in accordance with our recent pricing updates.

When you use an AI suite feature (i.e. Underlord) you’ll see a counter at the top of the menu showing the number of uses you have remaining. We’ll also flash a warning when you get close to using up your allotment.

Remove Filler Words and Shorten Word Gaps work on a per-composition basis. So once you’re unlocked it with a use, you’ll still be able to access and action the search results in that composition indefinitely.

Note: These limits do not effect users on Legacy plans, or users on Creator plans and above.