Online course promo video with AI: what to put in it

An online course promo video sells the course, not a lesson: it says who the course is for, what they will be able to do after it, what's inside, who teaches it, and where to enroll, then stops. If your lessons were made with an AI avatar, you can cut the promo from them: trim a few moments, add a short new intro, and join everything over one voice track with the enrollment link on screen.

The Sume facts below come from the Video trim, Audio detach, Timeline 1.0, Generate avatar video and Video captions docs, read on 2026-09-29. Points marked as current behavior are read from Sume's code.

What should an online course promo video include?

Five beats, one or two sentences each:

• Who it's for: the learner's starting point, in their words.
• What they'll be able to do: a skill or a finished piece of work. This is your claim about your course, so make it one you can back up, and don't promise income or results.
• What's inside: modules, length, format, and one short real moment from a lesson.
• Who teaches it: the instructor and why they know the subject.
• Where to enroll: the link, the price and any deadline, shown on screen as exact text.

Can I make a course promo from my AI lesson videos?

Yes, if the lessons are Sume renders. The editing tools read only your workspace's media.sume.com files, so a lesson you rendered on Sume can be cut directly:

• Trim: POST /v1/video-trim takes one clip plus a start and exactly one of end or duration, and returns a new MP4 holding only that range. The source is untouched.
• Voice: in current code a Timeline render keeps only its audio spine and optional soundtrack and drops each clip's own audio. To keep the instructor's words, pull them out with POST /v1/audio-detach, which takes an optional range, then pass the pieces as audio.parts[] (up to 20 gapless slices).
• Or narrate: write a new voice-over with text to speech and lay the trimmed moments under it as picture only.
• Join: one Timeline 1.0 render, 1080×1920 by default, or set an even width and height from 256 to 2160 for a 16:9 sales-page cut.

What if my course was filmed somewhere else?

Then AI covers the new parts, not your existing footage. Footage you shot and edited outside Sume isn't a media.sume.com file, so the trim and Timeline steps above can't read it; cut those moments in your own editor. A new intro can still come from an avatar: POST /v1/avatar-1.0/talking-video accepts a script when Sume estimates it at 4 to 60 seconds, in 16:9 for the sales page or 9:16 for social, and 720p is the documented resolution. In current code the avatar speaks English only. Use your own likeness or an instructor's only with their permission. AI avatar for online course videos covers building the instructor avatar.

How do I put the enrollment link on screen?

Send the finished promo to POST /v1/video-captions with authored cues: each has text, start and end, and the job burns exactly that copy at those times, without speech-to-text. In current code the caption job refuses videos over 60 seconds or without an audio stream, so keep the promo at 60 seconds or less, or caption a short closing piece before you join it.

How much does a course promo video cost?

Each piece is billed per call from one prepaid balance; you only pay for the pieces your promo uses.