A team of researchers from Bulgaria-based INSAIT, in collaboration with Netflix, has co-developed a new open-source AI model capable of transforming how video editing and visual effects are performed.
The model, called VOID (Video Object and Interaction Deletion), was released on April 3 under an Apache 2.0 license. It introduces a significant leap in AI-driven video editing by not only removing objects from footage, but also reconstructing scenes in a physically consistent way.
The project was led by researcher Saman Motamed. This release marks Netflix Research’s first publicly available AI tool.
Physics-aware video editing
Unlike conventional tools that simply erase visual elements, VOID simulates how the scene should evolve after an object is removed. The system accounts for motion, object interactions, and environmental changes in a way that mimics real-world physics.
This interaction-aware approach represents a shift from static editing toward dynamic scene understanding, an area where INSAIT researchers have been actively contributing.
In a human preference study involving 25 participants, VOID was selected 64.8% of the time, outperforming several existing tools. Among them was Runway, a leading commercial platform, which received 18.4% preference in direct comparisons.
Hybrid AI pipeline combines global technologies
The system integrates multiple AI components from leading technology organizations:
- Meta’s SAM2 for object segmentation
- Google’s Gemini 3 Pro for scene analysis
- Alibaba’s CogVideoX for video generation
At the core of the model is a “quadmask” framework, which allows the AI to understand what to remove and how surrounding elements should respond.
The research was conducted using large-scale compute infrastructure and synthetic datasets, with INSAIT contributing to the development and experimentation process.
A hub for world-class AI research
INSAIT is a collaboration between Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, ETH Zurich, and EPFL Lausanne. Backed by $100M from the Bulgarian government and additional funding from SiteGround, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Bulgarian entrepreneurs, and DeepMind, alongside business angels.
The focus of INSAIT is on conducting world-class research and attracting faculty, research scientists, postdocs, and PhD students.
