Adobe followed up the big news of new 26.0 versions in January with recent beta announcements that improve on those features. NAB in April looks like a solid release if trends hold.

Eran Stern provided an updated summary in After Effects 2026 Just Leveled Up. Later Eran followed with 10 After Effects Updates Everyone Missed, explaining that some of the most useful improvements are the small ones that quietly appear in release notes.

Also impressive are the additional new features in the Beta app. These include the following, which were conveniently covered by Jake In Motion in The Future of After Effects: March 2026 Beta Features (except the vector enhancements).

Also, flomotion demoed the newest features and shares tips for Managing RAM with subdivision levels, and more. And SonduckFilm had yet another perspective on the latest beta features in The Most Cinematic After Effects Update Ever! What’s New?

• Quick Apply: Spotlight-style search for every effect, preset, and menu command in AE
• Proportional Scrubbing: distribute value changes across multiple layers simultaneously
• Object Matte: AI-powered subject isolation that replaces the old Roto Brush workflow
• Depth of Field in Advanced 3D: true in-engine DoF with full camera controls
• Substance 3D Material Displacement: physically deform 3D geometry using material height data
• Vector Workflow Enhancements: SVG Import, Gradient support for converted Illustrator layers, Vector Gradient Scale and Rotation

Mograph.com spoke with Jake Bartlett about his new After Effects plug-in Railcut, which brings track-based clip editing to After Effects. You could trim, ripple, cut, and move clips without roundtripping to Premiere ever again — depending on your workflow. See LIVE: Ep 468 Special Guest Jake Bartlett.

Jake created the plug-in with some vibe encoding with Claude, which he discussed earlier.

Roland Kahlenberg (broadcastGEMs) had a competing tool with a different UI, Ae EDITOR – the Video Editing Script for After Effects.

Some might not be convinced you need NLE edit tools in AE. In fact the Railcut intro video appears to fail to keep audio and video in sync. For sure, this is not (yet) the ultimate feature-requested melding of AE and Premiere that would compete with a tricked-out Flame of yesteryear.

Roland says: “Some edits have a lot more keyframes than edit points and for these, there is a good case to use AE on its own or start off in PPro. It’s also nice to have magnetic editing and layer/group swap to test out different editorial options in AE and you can still finish off in PPro.” For a little more see Raziq in New Plugin – Trying to edit in After Effects with @JakeInMotion’s Railcut.

School of Motion posted A Real NLE Inside After Effects!? Sora is DEAD!?!? | Motion Mondays, which includes news that Adobe Project Neo gets a real 2D mode from Kaleb Gonyea (who has more). SoM also has a new ebook on motion design studios, for the cost of being on a mailing list.

Premiere Gal says that Photoshop’s New Rotate Feature is Insane. PiXimperfect covers the same Insane NEW Photoshop Tool: Rotate ANY Photo in 3D! You’re on your own for the Adobe Illustrator version!

Bonus: catch up on the Photoshop Jan 2026 Update: All 5 NEW Features Explained! with PiXimperfect.

In the video at After Effects Guru Meditation: Adding effects for an overall look, Chris Zwar goes through a range of effects and techniques that can be used to give videos an overall “look.”

In IBC VR Studio 2025 Victoria Neece with After Effects Update from postproduction-tutorials.net, Victoria Neece talks about the features and worflows in the After Effects. See especially the Quick Offset demo.

Apparently Captain Disillusion is still appearing on YouTube. See his CD / Blur. See also, A Tale of Three Blurs and A Tale of Five Blurs by Stu Maschwitz.

For more on blurs see Chris and Trish Meyer videos and Jake in Motion tutorials.

For the more NLE-centric among us…

Premiere Gal can catch you up on NEW Premiere v26 | All the Updates You Missed, and on effects in NEW Premiere Pro Effects You Need to Try.

Theoretically Media discussed an actual open-source NLE in TX Just dropped a FREE AI Video Editor and it is WILD! He also noted ComfyUI’s App Mode is the Easy Button We’ve Been Waiting For! (and other oldish news). Fully automated AI NLE is the beginning of a new product category but it’s not ready for primetime, as the saying goes. Maybe the free version of DaVinci can stick around, to grow the user base of the permanent license app.

Justin Serran says that I Replaced My Render Engine With AI (Here’s the Exact Workflow). He didn’t compare costs.

AI influencers favor certain AI aggregators like Higgsfield, though some say do not touch?/more, while other favored it (like BakersTuts). And others prefer Weavy, Comfy UI or even Firefly. Some of the reaction against Higgsfield AI may be due to their recent announcement of the death of motion design with “Vibecoding” for Video is Here | Higgsfield.

So, about a month later Jake in Motion released Will This AI Kill Motion Design? (Higgsfield Test) discussing the claims. You can safely assume the animation and coding foundation are not equally capable now.

TopDigitalTools posted 10 Great Motion Graphics Software in 2026!, an 8-minute introduction. You’ll find related advice in the 80-minute community-driven Hang with Jake LIVE | Open Q&A: AE, AI, Cavalry & More by Jake In Motion.

Adobe and NVIDIA announced a Strategic Partnership to Deliver the Next Generation of Firefly Models and Creative, Marketing and Agentic Workflows. What is this really? Here are comments from Adobe Firefly: Scaling Generative AI Secrets Revealed | Nvidia GTC Conference Recap 2026 from @backblaze and from Julian Goldie SEO in NEW NVIDIA + Adobe AI Update is INSANE!

For background strategy from late last year, see Adobe Max 2025 News: Firefly Custom Models, New Features & CTO Ely Greenfield Interview from The Neuron.

Find out more… Adobe has an AI Summit at NAB 2026, which is free online. This is not the GenAI Leader Summit for influencers held earlier this year.

War propaganda of various kinds has brought AI and deepfakes forward. For background, see We talked with a real forensic expert, Hany Farid, about deepfakes. from The FAIK Files and AI Video’s Biggest Lie — A Filmmaker’s Perspective | Jeremy Carrasco – Focus Check ep105 from CineD and Jeremy Carrasco.

AI Bubble Pop?