The Good and Bad of Using AI to Create Content Videos and Its Impact on Advertising

Step into any marketing suite today, and you'll hear the buzzword. Someone explaining how AI just assisted them in cooking up a new video, scripting a campaign within minutes, or creating infinite variations for social media ads. This includes leveraging AI for sophisticated contextual video advertising, where ads are seamlessly integrated into video content based on its theme and audience relevance. Artificial intelligence is no longer a stranger to the world of content creation, it's at the table, reforming how we script, design, and shoot.

But for all the drama, there's an equal amount of anxiety. Questions are piling up. Are videos created using AI getting brands closer to their consumers? Is convenience being exchanged for creativity? What's happening to trust, subtlety, and originality in advertising?

Let's dissect what AI in video is doing for brands. Where is it coming up short? How it's compelling the ad industry to rethink what works.

The Promise: Scale, Speed, and Possibility

One of the most obvious advantages of AI in video creation is speed. A task that used to take a full production team days, or even weeks. It can now be compressed into hours or minutes. Need a 30-second explainer with animation, a voiceover, and subtitles in five languages? There's a tool for that.

Brands are exploiting this. Rather than investing tens of thousands of dollars in a single campaign, groups can now construct dozens of versions, A/B tests, and iterate messaging in real-time. Small companies are especially accessing these tools to punch above their weight, producing professional video content without a full crew on staff.

Then there's the data. AI models can process audience behaviour at scale, figuring out what kind of visuals, pacing, or tonal change yields the most engagement. That feedback loop enables marketers to create smarter videos, not merely faster ones.

Certain AI tools even personalise content for specific viewers. Consider changing one video in real-time to display a different version based on who's viewing it. Alternative product shots, voiceovers, or copy. This hyper-personalisation sounds futuristic but is already underway in the e-commerce and education sectors.

So yes, the silver lining is there. AI in video unlocks creative potential, brings parity, and provides advertisers with new levers to use.

But not all green lights.

The Creative Tradeoff: Slick, But Soulless?

Here's the thing: AI can mimic. At times, very convincingly indeed. But still has a hard time producing in a really human manner.

Most AI-created videos sound, for lack of a better term, hollow. They can appear polished and sound correct, but there's something unnaturally flat about them; like a copy of a copy. They lack the nuance of emotion, tone shift, or cultural context that human creators instinctively absorb.

This is especially challenging for brands attempting to convey meaningful narratives. A founder's story. A customer's change. A thought-provoking position on a social cause. These involve a level of consideration, empathy, and emotional intelligence AI hasn't figured out.

Some companies have learned the hard way. A brand's AI-generated campaign, say, appeared fantastic, yet alienated a core audience since the messaging came across as too generic. There was no lived experience, no perspective. What happened? Glorious video, with poor impact.

And whereas AI can recut existing content ad infinitum, it has difficulty with white pages. Fresh ideas, particularly boundary-pushing ones, still call for human guts and intuition. The twist? The more AI-flooded the marketplace gets, the more human-generated content pops.

The Ethical Landmine: Ownership, Transparency, and Deepfakes

AI video production also raises a whole range of problematic ethical questions. The first is about ownership. Who does the end product belong to if an AI program produces a video based on data scraped off the internet? And what if that content is inadvertently sourced from copyrighted material?

Transparency is another concern that is on the rise. When an audience watches a video, should they be informed that it is AI-generated? Does it make a difference? Some think disclosure creates trust. Others are concerned that calling something out could result in automatic rejection or backlash, even if the video is high-quality.

But the greatest danger hanging in the wings may be misusing generative video. Deepfakes, fake voices, and doctored films are becoming more advanced and difficult to spot. In the hands of phishing attackers or cyber threat actors, they can be employed for fraud, deception, or manipulating elections.

For advertisers, it represents a crisis of confidence. When AI-generated content is flooding the airwaves, audiences are more and more skeptical. If anything can be staged, how do you establish what exists? And how do you create a brand that others trust?

The Platform Puzzle: Algorithms, Attention, and Oversaturation

Another issue that's developing is platform fatigue. As AI makes content creation easy, we see explosive growth in video volume, but not necessarily quality.

This excess has presented fresh challenges to platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Algorithms are perpetually adjusting to bring forth authentic or performing content, yet everything seems like mush when everybody uses comparable tools.

For marketers, that means an increasingly higher bar to meet. To stand out, being "good" just isn't enough, you have to be different. More and more, that differentiation is the product of originality, not automation.

There is also increasing pushback against consumers. Consumers increasingly switch off templated or robot-feeling content. Consumers crave rawness, humor, and honesty, stuff AI can't yet deliver on dependably.

Others have combined methods, using AI for scale and velocity but incorporating human touches for creativity and warmth. For instance, a startup can use AI to build the outline of a campaign but hire a filmmaker to film live shots or a copywriter to infuse brand voice.

This blended approach is the sweet spot: automation and authenticity.

The Shift in Advertising Strategy: From Messaging to Meaning

Perhaps the most profound transformation AI inspires is not technological, it's epistemological.

Advertising was the art of message control. But with the age of AI, the message is everywhere, regurgitated ad nauseum, tweaked algorithmically, and spread instantly. The power has shifted from what you say to how you feel.

Brands need to worry less about the perfect script and more about looking consistently, credibly, and creatively. It's not just what's in the video, who's creating it, why, and how it makes us feel.

That takes the soul. Purpose. And even then, a great deal of human judgment.

The smartest marketers are not just using AI to create more content. They are using it to free up time and focus on the human things that matter to people. To get into strategy, brainstorm big, refine positioning, and bring innovative concepts to life.

In other words, the best use of AI isn't to substitute creativity but to preserve it.

Final Thoughts: Use With Care, Lead With People

AI video software is powerful. There's no argument there. They've opened production up to the masses, sped up timelines, and opened up creative doors that hadn't existed before. They're a game-changer for businesses that must move quickly and grow rapidly.

But ease comes at a cost. When everything is mechanised, then everything starts to sound the same. The danger is less of poor content and more of loss of touch, nuance, and credibility.

Advertising is not about impressions, it's about impact. Impact still depends on meaning, creativity, and emotional genuineness. These are not commodities that AI can churn out at random.

So, yes, go ahead and use the tools. Let AI take some of the load off. But don't outsource your brand's soul. The most influential content isn't fast, it's human.

Companies like Filament are helping brands understand the nuances of contextual video advertising and how to combine technology with human insight for impactful results.