When Everyone Can Be a Filmmaker: Video Communication with AI

Do you remember? There was a time when video in corporate communications meant calling the “movie guys.” You needed budget, coordination, and a partner who arrived with gear, lights, and a feel for how a narrative should come to life.

I’ve worked with such specialists for event movies that set the tone for a room, campaign trailers for internal transformations, and pitch visualizations that helped teams understand and feel a setting before it existed. These collaborations were invaluable, and they still are - the cross-pollination of creative disciplines and minds has always pushed work further than any tool alone.

But the landscape has shifted in the last two years. Anyone can now generate cinematic material with just a few sentences, whether in Veo, Zora, Higgsfield, Kling, Seedream, or whatever appears next year. Full branded ads, coherent characters, visionary settings, virtual-real environments: they’re all suddenly within reach and deliver amazing outcomes in a short time.

With these options come fresh decisions we didn’t have to make before, when thinking about video as a communication tool. What’s the purpose of the piece? What level of realism supports the message rather than distracts from it? How do we translate the content into suitable AI projects and prompts? And which tool actually aligns with that specific purpose and production environment? Can we use it in our organization, and which legal aspects come with it?

Three Questions Before You Start

AI video lowers the threshold to create, but it doesn’t replace strategic thinking. Before choosing a tool or sketching the storyboard, three questions help clarify what you’re actually trying to achieve.

1. What is the intent: information, inspiration, or intervention?

Some videos exist to convey facts, like strategy points, key metrics, and operational updates. If that’s the goal, the real decision is what belongs visually and what works better as a voice, a face, or even a simple graphic. Teaching and explaining still follow the same rule as before AI: clarity wins.

Other pieces aim to open a mental window. You want people to imagine a future scenario, sense a mood, or shift perspective in a transformation process. Here, inspiration is key. Short cinematic sequences can support moments of emotion or vision without faking realism.
And sometimes a video is an invitation to act, a gentle push that nudges an audience to reflect, respond, or participate. That’s almost a micro-intervention, and it needs a different tone than a classic information clip.

(It’s worth noting that not everything needs to be video. If the goal is to surface multiple viewpoints or stimulate reflection, a talking-heads sequence or even an AI-generated podcast might land better.)

2. Who is sending the message?

In the age of AI-rendered faces and automated voice cloning, source transparency matters more than ever. Audiences want to know who is behind a message. Is it a leader? A team? A project group?
That choice drives everything: real person, avatar, voiceover, or visual-only. Be very intentional - also with internal stakeholders - on the message ownership.

3. Who receives it?

Vision videos often failed because they spoke to the boardroom, not the shop floor. With AI, there’s now the option to tailor versions without blowing up the budget. A single narrative can be adapted for different audiences, local contexts and languages, or levels of abstraction.
If you know who you’re talking to, you can adjust tone, pacing, visual realism, and complexity. The same storyline can look entirely different in a factory, a retail environment, or a corporate HQ.

Tools Worth Considering — and When to Use them

The tool landscape is exploding, but a few platforms have proven useful in real projects. Here a few examples and how they match the communication task at hand.

END-TO-END WORKFLOWS
If you want everything in one place, like scripting, editing, dubbing, collaboration, versioning, the established ecosystem of Adobe remains the safe all-rounder to combine classic production with AI enhancements.
Descript offers a focused approach with strong transcription, editing-by-text, and translation features. Both are good when you want structure: storyboards, feedback loops, and a shared space to work through several iterations.

AVATARS
For avatar-led content, HeyGen is still the most reliable mix of quality and usability. Global enterprises also lean toward Loom (by Atlassian), especially when the goal is to standardize training or messaging at scale.
Synthesia is moving fast as well — their new partnership with Simpleshow brings together avatars, real people, and sketched explainers as an effective mix for hybrid storytelling.

HOW-TO-CONTENT
If the task is to show a process or guide someone through a workflow, Guidde is a suitable tool. The combination of screen recording, step annotations, and templated explainers is ideal for operations, product updates, and internal FAQs.

REAL STORIES WITH REAL PEOPLE
For talking-heads formats, employee campaigns, and HR content, Cofenster is still my go-to. It keeps you close to your actual organization — recognizable faces, authentic tone, quick contributions from across the company. They offer three AI agents: Milo transforms long videos into short, viral clips, Ella is an AI Assistant for the collecting and editing process and Theo is capable to turn static documents into dynamic, branded videos. Authenticity and and an intuitive interface are clear pluses for this platform.

AI VIRTUAL WORLDS
The new generation of prompt-to-video tools is fantastic for experimentation. They’re ideal for mood pieces, speculative scenarios, and early creative drafts.
But as the providers are based in the US or China, they introduce their own compliance and usage questions, especially in corporate environments. Maybe it’s easier to collaborate with AI video artists and have a proper contract for the services and the outcomes. Plus: this is a more or less uncharted territory and will create some attention. Check for example, my favorite Instagram creators Kelly Boesch and David Szauder or find more names in this article: https://artlist.io/blog/ai-video-production/

A table with AI video tools and use cases — Selected tools and where they shine

Compliance and Transparency matter

The creative freedom AI promises meets a simple constraint: your IT and compliance environment decides what’s actually allowed, especially in Europe.

First, check which tools can be installed or accessed in your organization. Agencies often have more flexibility than corporate teams, but both need clarity on integration, security standards, and the approval processes.

Then comes the question of data. Where is it stored? Which servers are involved? Which third party services?

If real people, faces or voices show up in the material, you move into data-privacy territory, and for business information, or sensitive project details, confidentialty rules may apply. A paid plan with a bigger platform usually gives clearer protection, but you still need to read the contract. Look for the essentials: GDPR compliance and data-processing agreements. In an employee context, labor law may add another layer.

The created content itself also deserves attention. Usage rights differ from tool to tool, and some restrict commercial or broadcast use unless you’re on a specific tier. And frankly, AI helps here too. Ask your LLM to summarize a contract section, list risks, or draft questions for legal review.

Above all, transparency is becoming the core currency of communication in the AI era. Mark what was created or enhanced with AI. Tell people in front of the camera how their material will be used. Get written consent for translations, clones, enhancements, or any form of editing or reuse. Not because compliance demands it, but because trust does.

If your organization is developing an AI strategy, your video experiments may also serve as valuable learning moments for colleagues navigating AI tools in other territories.

One last thought: plenty of slide decks and documents would work better as short videos. Now that the production barrier is lower, it's worth reconsidering what should actually be a presentation and what deserves to move, speak, and show rather than explain.

If you're building an AI communication strategy or want to explore how video fits into your transformation work, let's talk.

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