The big news in January of course was that Adobe announced new 26.0 versions for Creative Cloud video apps. The new features were detailed in Adobe announces 2026 video updates at Sundance here on PVC.
The AI-powered Object Mask is the big What’s New in Premiere 26.0, but of course there is more. Cut to the Point has 15 Creative Object Mask Applications in Premiere Pro.
After Effects 26.0 was an even bigger release. Adobe shared new documentation as well as listings of fixed and known issues.
The new features have been covered for months in beta versions, so there’s a wealth of backround information in previous monthly AE roundups. Official new features include:
- Native Parametric 3D meshes
- over 1300 free Substance 3D materials with controls (fun and effective)
- Spot and Parallel light shadows in Advanced 3D
- Variable font animation
- Enhanced Vector Workflows with SVG import
- Retain gradients and transparency when converting Illustrator layers to shape layers
- Unmult effect
- Three new audio effects (Distortion, Compressor, Noise Gate)
- Lossless compressed disk caching
- WinARM native support
- Refreshed Preferences panel
- Crop Comp to Layer Bounds command
- Rotation snapping behavior improvements
- New property methods and accessible dropdown strings in expressions & scripting
- Unicode backend (run AE in a language other than your OS’s)
- Numerous bug fixes
Eran Stern provided an updated summary in After Effects 2026 Just Leveled Up.
Jake In Motion added After Effects 26 Changes EVERYTHING, and flomotion added NEW FEATURES in AFTER EFFECTS 26.
The After Effects team is moving onto new features in the Beta app, including:
- Duplicate layers using Alt/Option-drag
- Quick Set Anchor using the Properties panel or a keyboard shortcut.
Adobe AE product manager Victoria @fakegreendress.bsky.social says that “Sonduck is making some really pretty stuff with After Effects 26.0”. And with only 6 Jedi hand motions!
School of Motion has a packed roundup: Photoshop’s Big Update, Rive’s Real-Time 3D & AI Render Engines?! Among other things, they tease Rive 3D rendering capabilities demoed by Frederick Berria, AI as aggregator/render engine (more below) with Figma‘s Weavy, and Photoshop and Adobe Support updates.
While we’re at it, PiXimperfect covered the Photoshop Jan 2026 Update: All 5 NEW Features Explained!
Jake In Motion has about 10 video tours on The Panels of After Effects. Here’s an example below. BTW, see his downloads which are available for pay-what-you-want.
Below is No “Slices From Guides” in After Effects? Here’s the Fix. Photoshop has had the Slices From Guides feature for years but After Effects still doesn’t. In a tutorial by Michael Ponch, you’ll find a native workaround to precisely slice your layers and comps along guides.The new After Effects 2026 feature “Crop Comp to Selected Layer(s) Bounds” comes in handy here.
Gavin Herman outlines 26 After Effects PLUGINS to Use in 2026, from free to most expensive. Boone Loves Video continued with map tutorials but also posted his own 26 After Effects PLUGINS to Use in 2026.
Motion Tools Pro also looks good; it’s a command center with powerful tools, widgets, and expressions all in one place.
Happy to borrow technique from Stephan Zammit in Create High-End SaaS Panels: Vibrant Glass UI in After Effects.
Nolen Jonker says, I swapped Adobe Premiere and After Effects for a browser-based editor -— and I’m not going back. He’s talking about how Pikimov might replace After Effects, being one of the best free motion apps. Note that Pikimov DOES have a motion blur effect, added in the recent V5 update.
Pikimov is more like an alternative to Hitfilm, which did come in handy. Hitfilm was ended by FXHome and Artlist, who pivoted into AI aggregation (see below).
Creation Effects offers a Free Preset – Fractal Noisier to “super-warp” your textures or footage. It’s not the fractal explorer filter, which was featured in a school of motion video. To understand fractal noise see Chris Zwar’s evergreen Fractal Noise: Advanced analysis of After Effects most versatile plugin.
Instant FUI Text Generator Free/Pro by Nawaz Alamgir is intriguing, though untested here.
In This AI REPLACES After Effects in Minutes Lines To Designs talks about Mago Studio for AI video generation for characters.
In The Ultimate AI Video Starter Guide for 2026! Theoretically Media breaks down the history of the tech (from Deep Dream to Transformers), the core workflows you need to master (like Text-to-Video and Image-to-Video), and the best tools available now. He compares top models like Google’s Veo 3.1, OpenAI’s Sora 2, Kling 2.6, and the industry-standard image generator, Nano Banana Pro.
Not long after this, most influencers announced Kling 3.0 as the weekly king of AI video. Below is one take, Curious Refuge with Kling 3.0 is the Best AI Video Generator Yet!
Curious Refuge takes another tack, looking for the best AI Video Tool Aggregator in I Tested Every Major AI Video Subscription… Here’s the Best One. Their website has a variety of resources for evaluating the plethora of AI aggregators and models.
Jumping ahead, Adobe might need to get some projects out of beta! Back in October Adobe shared Introducing Project Graph: Creative workflows reimagined. Is this real enough (with Adobe Boards), or will Adobe also find a way to leverage Google Genie 3 (below)?
There was a meeting of the secret team, the GenAI Leader Summit at Adobe. Take a peek…
AI influencers favor certain aggregators like Higgsfield, though some say do not touch?/more, while other favored it (like BakersTuts). And others prefer Weavy, Comfy UI or other,
We’re not sure if the do not touch reaction against Higgsfield AI is in part due to their new announcement of the death of motion design with “Vibecoding” for Video is Here | Higgsfield.
In How to Build TV Ready Animated Ads With AI — Ultimate Guide, Jack Vs. AI is pushing Artlist’s AI Toolkit.
![AI is finally controllable! …with a stick [FREE ComfyUI Workflow + Tutorial]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pUb58eAZ3pc/hqdefault.jpg "After Effects News January 2026 29")
The next step seems to be Google DeepMind Genie 3 — AI Game Engines are here to challenge 3D engines like Unreal. Bilawal Sidhu explains below. Theoretically Media had another take in Google Just Broke Reality: GENIE is RELEASED!
There’s a ton of hype around all of this of course, and only a few days Theoretically Media had already crowned Kling the new king of AI video. It’s great to pay to beta test software!
Tommy Geoco explains Why he’s the most trusted man in design. That’s apparently Ridd, “the designer who spots design trends before they’re trends.”
The prolific Motion by Nick (Nick Greenawalt) had posted Learn VIRAL projection mapping in 10 minutes (beginner), but he’s switched gears to toilets, perhaps leveraging the ensh*tification of America theme into projections of instant wealth, or at least social media impressions. You decide.
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