A year ago, "AI video" mostly meant a talking avatar reading a script in a flat, slightly-off voice. It's moved fast since — fast enough that we now build it into client campaigns where it used to be a novelty. But it's still not a replacement for everything a camera and a good editor can do, and pretending otherwise wastes budget.
Here's how we actually think about it.
Where AI video earns its place
Ad variations. The biggest, least glamorous win. A single approved concept can become six or eight different hooks, voiceovers and pacing cuts for testing — something that used to mean re-shooting or re-recording every time. Most of the value of AI video for a business our size shows up here, not in the flashy generated-footage clips people post as demos.
Product content at speed. A new product photo, a price update, a seasonal offer — turning that into a short, clean video used to mean scheduling a shoot for something that might be irrelevant in three weeks. AI-assisted production collapses that timeline to days.
Filling gaps between real shoots. Not every piece of content needs a full production. AI-generated or AI-enhanced footage can carry the smaller, lower-stakes posts between the brand films and UGC batches that still need a real camera and a real person.
Where it still falls short
Fully AI-generated footage of people still reads as slightly wrong to most viewers — not broken, just off in a way that's hard to name. For anything where trust matters — testimonials, healthcare, anything claiming a real result — we still reach for UGC or fully produced creative video, not generated footage. The technology is good at motion, product, abstract and B-roll-style content; it's not yet good at standing in for a real customer telling a real story.
The honest cost comparison
The appeal isn't that AI video is free — it's that it changes what's economical to produce at all. A dozen ad variations for a two-week campaign was never going to get a full shoot budget. Now it can exist, get tested, and the two or three that actually perform can graduate to a proper production. That's the real shift: not replacing video production, but making the testing layer underneath it affordable for a business that isn't running a national ad budget.
If you're deciding between a full shoot and something faster, the honest answer is usually both — a smaller AI-assisted batch to find what resonates, and real production for what's proven to work.