How the Botez Sisters Hit 8M Views in 30 Days
A Mountain of Footage Without a Scalable Way to Distribute It
The Botez Sisters, Alexandra and Andrea, are two of the most entertaining personalities in chess. They've built a loyal audience of over ~3M+ cumulative subscribers on Twitch and YouTube through their engaging chess content. But like most creators who dominate live and long-form, they were sitting on a mountain of footage without a scalable way to distribute it.
Every stream, every tournament recap, every celebrity chess match was full of viral moments. For a creator team running at the pace the Botez Sisters operate, that model creates a backlog. By the time a clip is ready, the conversation has moved on. The Botez Sisters needed a system that could keep up with the volume of their content and the speed of the internet but still have the selectivity dialied in.
~3M+
subscribers
The OpusClip + Human Playbook
The Botez Sisters wanted to maintain a human touch on their clips; So rather than replacing their editor, OpusClip changed what the editor spent their time on. Here’s the workflow:
Step 1: OpusClip processes the long-form content
Every longform video was run through OpusClip, which analyzed the footage, identified the highest potential moments and auto-generated clips complete with captions, reframing, and formatting for short-form.
Step 2: The human editor reviews the top clips
Instead of watching hours of footage to find the diamonds, the editor started with a curated shortlist made by OpusClip. Their job shifted from discovery to judgment (i.e. "which clips are ready to post, which ones need a polish, and which ones have breakout potential that the AI flagged but a human instinct can elevate.")
Step 3: Post, analyze, repeat
Clips went live across platforms using OpusClips scheduler tool. Performance data fed back into the process, helping the team double down on what was working.
The result
More clips, higher quality output and a sustainable system that got them 8M+ views in 30 days.
Long-form videos
AI DISCOVERY
Finds the best moments
AI scans long-form videos, identifies high-potential clips, and prepares them for short-form formats.
HUMAN JUDGMENT
Editor
Reviews the shortlist
The editor starts with curated clips, then decides what to post, polish, or prioritize.
PUBLISH + LEARN
Posts & analyzes
Clips go live through the scheduler, while performance data shows what to double down on.
Short clips
Data improves the next cycle
Double Down on Winners
When videos featuring the Botez Sisters alongside Magnus Carlsen, the world's most famous chess player, started gaining traction online, OpusClip picked up the signal. It surfaced the most relevant Carlsen clips from across their back catalog and generated a batch of polished short-form candidates built around those interactions.
The human editor took those clips, added finishing touches, and posted them while the moment was still building. The clips pulled 2.4M views in a concentrated burst, roughly 30% of the entire month's total.
- 8M+
- total views in 30 days
- ~2.4M
- views driven by Carlsen clips
- 1 editor
- required
No agency would have moved that fast and a solo editor watching hours of footage wouldn't have caught it in time.
What This Proves
The best-performing content operations in 2026 and beyond look like this:
AI handles volume
Processing hours of footage, scoring moments and generating clip candidates.
Humans handle judgment
Reviewing the shortlist, elevating the best clips if necessary, recognizing when a cultural moment is worth a surge of output.
Can your setup detect a viral moment while it's happening?
If you're a creator or creator team running long-form content, the question is whether your current setup can detect a viral moment while it's happening and respond at scale. OpusClip makes your editor 10x more effective and it makes sure you never miss the moment.