The Landscape of AI Video Tools
Easy-to-use tools and my experience
Hey friend,
How are you? I hope you’re doing great.
If you recall, I recently covered The Landscape of AI Writing Tools, so it only makes sense to continue the series with AI video tools.
What is an AI Video?
Here is a nice definition from Canva:
An AI video generator is a tool that generates videos from descriptions using artificial intelligence algorithms. These text-to-video generators use AI to create or enhance video content from text inputted by users. AI video generation helps craft high-quality videos without the need for expensive equipment, actors, or even video editing skills.
Yes, but
Yes, with all AI video tools, you’ll get a video just by describing what you want or from a source file, but you’d still need to edit and customize it around your brand guidelines.
From this perspective, think of it as an “express lane” to your first video draft and later tweaks.
Lay of the land
As you can imagine, video is one of the fastest categories in generative AI tools as it offers the ultimate experience - sounds, moving images, and graphics.
No doubt, key building blocks in your visual storytelling toolset.
There are many AI video tools for various purposes, ranging from training, explainer videos, and personal videos to full-fledged ads.
The latter I covered in this story about Toys R Us releasing the first video made with Open AI’s Sora, text-to-video technology:
Here are the top tools you should look at:
Datacamp goes further and breaks down the landscape by function:
How to get started
First, figure out what your purpose is and who your target audience is.
Next, format. Are you creating an explainer video? Tutorial? Social video?
What is your target platform for distribution?
Once you have figured it out, it’ll be easier for you to find the right tool.
Need a talking head video?
One of the simplest tools I’ve recently come across is Synthesia, which is considered one of the leading AI video generation platform according to G2.
The platform is ideal for training, explainers, personal videos, product walkthroughs, employee onboarding and much more.
Synthesia offers you:
Rich avatar library: Pick from 140+ AI presenters
Various base sources: Create your video from PPT, website, idea or template.
Rich Template Library: Choose from 200+ video templates for any purpose. This way you don’t need to invent the wheel. Templates come with animation, so you don’t have to create your own.
Instant Translation: Open your business to the world by making videos in 120+ languages right from your browser.
Kicking the tires
I took a stab using the free version, and created this explainer video for DecisionAdvantage.ai, a startup I’m involved with:
As you can see, the story structure is very simple:
Pain point phrased as a question to maximize attention right from the start
Solution: One sentence product summary of what problem the product solves and who it’s for
Product: 3-step user experience
Use cases: To illustrate how you can use the product
Benefits: Payoffs for using the product.
Call-to-action: What people should do next.
Look at the voice inflection, natural lip synching to my script and the entry and exit of visual elements throughout to complement the narration.
Think of the cost, many studio hours and million takes this simple video would have required had I done it the old way.
Yes! There are many ways you can introduce a new product to strangers, including turning this video into a brand story.
In this case, you would cast your customer as the hero, facing various obstacles before discovering your solution.
The cool part
A premium feature allows you to create your Custom Avatar or digital tween that looks and sounds like you for a more personal touch, always ready for new scripts, you can then plant in various environments.
Crazy!
In case you’re wondering, we’ve already entered the era of AI agents or clones with CustomGPTs, customer service and even in the dating world.
Now, your AI-powered extension, tailored to your preferences and dislikes, can screen potential matches at scale.
We see a similar dynamic in a new crop of AI-powered lead generation and recruiting platforms.
On a very basic level, the notion of “Why don’t your AI agent talk to mine to figure out a date” is in fact already here.
It happens every time you ask people: “feel free to throw your availability in my calendar…”
Other easy-to-use tools to get you started
The nice thing about these tools, you have various entry points to create your video:
Pictory allows you to generate your video in 5 ways:
Text to Video: Describe what you want to create and generate a video
URL to Video: Turn any website’s content into a video
AI Video Tool: Edit an existing video file
Images to Video: Transform an image/s into an animated slideshow
PPT to Video: Repurpose your presentation file into a video with narration you can share
Invideo offers you other onramps to create your video:
Freestyle AI chatbot: You can type in what type of video you’d like to create
You also have canned options by the target platform where you’ll fill out forms:
YouTube Explainer
Script to Video
YouTube Shorts
News Video
TikTok video
Instagram Reel
Runway gives you much richer artistic capabilities, ranging from video, image, audio and 3D tools.
In short
The AI video landscape is quite impressive and capabilities will only get better in time.
My advice to you is simple.
You should balance your video storytelling with both traditional videos and AI-generated synthetic videos.
Each video type has its purpose, efficiency and emotional impact values.
A fun experiment could be creating your custom avatar on Synthesia with your looks and voice and compare it to the same video you record without AI.
It would be interesting to see if people would notice the difference.
What do you think? What has been your experience using AI video tools? Feel free to drop your thoughts.
See you next time!
Best,
- Shlomi
Shlomi Ron
Chief Storytelling Officer
Visual Storytelling Institute
story > visual > emotion > experience
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