AI video tools are becoming reliable enough for real marketing work
Video AI has crossed a threshold. After years of producing distorted faces and broken hands, the technology now generates output good enough for broadcast commercials-and creative agencies are building it into their standard workflows.
At AKQA, AI plays a role in most early-stage creative work, a shift that happened within the last eight months. The quality inflection point arrived this year, according to Ben Royce, the agency's CTO. The software now understands video editing terminology and the practical needs of editors in ways earlier versions didn't.
"The tools are finally at the bare minimum to start working with reliably," Royce said.
What creatives actually bring to the table now
The question for agencies: what's the value when the AI can generate video at this level?
Royce's answer is straightforward. "Clients are paying for the skill and the talent to be able to use AI effectively at their brand's quality or higher, and they're paying for taste," he said. "It's easy to produce slop. The difference is we know how to structure, create lots of assets that are good enough on the first pass or require minimal editing. That's hard. That's actually a craft."
At AKQA, one concrete timesaver involves uploading a brand's existing 3D assets-say, a Lexus SUV-then using AI to generate hundreds or thousands of variations. The car driving through snow in Sweden. The same car on Brooklyn streets in different lighting and weather. Previously, those variations required flights, hotels, and location shoots.
"All of a sudden you can do a lot more testing because the barrier to entry to more variants is not flights and hotels, it's creativity," Royce said.
Multi-model platforms are replacing single tools
New platforms are letting professionals switch between different video models depending on the task. Magnific, a tool used in campaigns for Carl's Jr., Puma, and Amazon Prime's House of David, operates this way-giving creators access to multiple top models rather than forcing them into one ecosystem.
The shift reflects a broader change in how agencies approach AI. Instead of betting on a single vendor, they're building workflows that mix and match tools based on what works best for each specific job.
Legal concerns have started to ease
Brands were initially hesitant about copyright and fair use questions surrounding video AI. That caution is shifting as court rulings clarify what's permissible and as model providers become more transparent about training data sources.
"Today, all the big video models are backed by a social network-that's where they are getting their video," said Joaquín Cuenca Abela, co-founder and CEO of Magnific. "It's a combination of more clear provenance of the data used to train the models and some rulings that are giving brands a peace of mind that this is actually OK."
Royce advises brand clients to work only with enterprise platforms that contractually guarantee they won't use client work to train future model versions. Model providers have become more serious about these guarantees, he said.
Adobe's Hannah Elsakr, VP of GenAI new business ventures, said brands care equally about output quality. "When it's protective of their IP and they see that the output-at a bit-depth, at a quality, the color, the character, the physics-is in keeping with their brand," they're willing to adopt AI tools.
The skill gap is real
Despite the progress, talent remains essential. Royce is direct about this: "You can give the best tools to someone who doesn't know what they're doing, and it's not gonna end well."
Understanding how AI models respond to prompts, what they excel at, and where they struggle-that's a learnable skill. It's not replacing creative talent. It's adding a new technical layer to the craft.
Nearly nine in 10 digital video buyers said they used or planned to use AI in video creation, according to an Interactive Advertising Bureau survey. The platforms exist. The legal questions have clearer answers. The remaining variable is whether creatives develop the skill to use these tools effectively.
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