TwelveLabs launched Rodeo on April 20, 2026, at NAB Show in Las Vegas, its first consumer-facing application after years of building video AI infrastructure and APIs for enterprise clients. Rodeo is an AI creative co-pilot that lets editors find, assemble, and cut footage using natural language prompts, reducing raw-footage-to-story workflows from hours or days to minutes.

For the broader landscape, see our complete guide to AI coding tools in 2026.

What Happened

TwelveLabs has operated since 2021 as a video intelligence platform, building APIs and models for media companies to analyze and search large video archives. Rodeo marks the company's first move into the creator application layer. The tool lets editors describe a moment, emotion, or concept in plain language and receive clip suggestions, edit recommendations, and assembled sequences, with no manual logging, metadata entry, or technical API integration required.

The announcement came alongside two other upgrades. Pegasus 1.5, the company's latest video foundation model, now includes time-based metadata extraction: a single API call scans a video, identifies temporal segment boundaries, and outputs structured metadata in a user-defined schema. In testing, Pegasus 1.5 outperformed Gemini 2.5 Pro by 30% on segmentation quality benchmarks and is already running in production at a major broadcast network. TwelveLabs also announced an integration with Autodesk Flow Capture, the digital dailies and review software, adding Smart Search and Smart Actions powered by TwelveLabs: natural language video search and automated tagging inside the Flow Capture review workflow.

Why It Matters

Rodeo is a direct challenge to how editors currently organize and cut raw footage. Most AI editing tools add features on top of existing timeline-based NLEs. Rodeo starts from a different premise: describe what you want and the AI finds it. The model is closer to how a director thinks (find me the shot where she looks away) than how traditional editors are built (drag clip to track, trim handles).

TwelveLabs has an advantage here over tools built by established NLE vendors: its core models were trained on video understanding at scale, not retrofitted onto an existing edit paradigm. Pegasus 1.5's 30% segmentation edge over Gemini 2.5 Pro matters for long-form content where scene boundary accuracy directly affects how useful automated assembly becomes. The Autodesk Flow Capture integration also signals a B2B2C strategy: TwelveLabs builds the AI layer, established tools get the distribution, creators benefit from natural language search inside tools they already use on set and in post.

Key Details

  • Product: Rodeo: AI creative co-pilot for video editors
  • Announced: April 20, 2026 at NAB Show 2026, Las Vegas (booth W1923)
  • Core feature: Natural language clip discovery, edit suggestions, automated sequence assembly
  • No setup required: Deploys directly into existing workflows without API integration
  • New model: Pegasus 1.5: time-based metadata extraction, 30% better segmentation vs Gemini 2.5 Pro
  • In production: Pegasus 1.5 already deployed at a major broadcast network
  • Integration: Autodesk Flow Capture: Smart Search and Smart Actions for digital dailies workflows
  • Pricing: Not disclosed at launch
  • Company: TwelveLabs, CEO Jae Lee (co-founder)

What to Do Next

Rodeo does not yet have publicly disclosed pricing or a self-serve sign-up page. The fastest path to access is the waitlist or early access form on twelvelabs.io. The full NAB 2026 press release has details on booth demos and early partner access. If you are using Autodesk Flow Capture for digital dailies on set or in post, the Smart Search integration is the lower-friction entry point: it adds natural language video search inside a tool you likely already have in your workflow.

For editors evaluating AI assembly tools, Rodeo's differentiation from Descript or Adobe AI features is its foundation: Pegasus was built specifically for video understanding, not adapted from a text or image model. The 30% segmentation benchmark edge over Gemini 2.5 Pro is a meaningful signal for anyone dealing with long-form footage where scene boundary accuracy determines how useful automated assembly actually is.

TwelveLabs will be at NAB Show 2026 through April 22 at booth W1923.