Verdict published 2026-09-15 · Category: video editing & transcription (service businesses, coaches, real estate)
Today's AI news was mostly free "AI workshops" run by chambers of commerce and consultants, promising to teach small business owners how to use AI without naming a single tool or use case up front. Buried in the fine print of what a decent workshop should cover: real, named tools with real prices, like Descript ($12/month) for video editing and Otter.ai ($8.33/month) for transcription.
The workshops themselves are lead generation, not training, and we're not writing a page about those. But Descript is a real, specific tool that keeps coming up whenever "AI and small business video" is the topic, so it's worth a straight answer instead of a vague mention. Descript lets you edit video by editing a text transcript, auto-removes filler words, and generates captions. It does not write your script, and it does not make a boring video interesting.
Free plan: 1 hour of transcription a month, watermarked exports — enough to test, not enough to run a business on. Creator plan: $12/month (billed annually; check current pricing) removes the watermark and raises the limit. There's no free lunch version that covers regular weekly posting.
Anyone who already publishes video on a recurring schedule: real estate agents doing listing walkthroughs, coaches or consultants posting testimonials and talking-head clips, service businesses recording how-to content. If you post video once a quarter, skip it — the editing time you'd save doesn't add up to $12/month yet.