5 Common AI Video Mistakes Businesses Make (And How to Avoid Them)

Generative AI has revolutionized video content. The barrier between having a vision for a video and implementing it is now lower than ever. For video marketers, this presents a conundrum. On the one hand, they can streamline their production process. On the other hand, there’s the threat of oversaturation and content inflation.

To effectively use AI for video marketing, businesses must avoid common pitfalls that result in bland, unoriginal content that will disappear in the waves of AI content already crashing over social media platforms.

Here’s how.

1. Overcomplicating prompts or failing to personalize them

In using generative AI, the first key challenge video marketers face is to strike a balance between failing to personalize prompts and overcomplicating them.

A prompt should be specific enough to ensure that the resulting video content aligns with your brand voice. At the same time, you shouldn’t sink enormous amounts of time into overly complex prompts that include too many technical specifics or conflicting style requests.

Instead, use a concise, well-structured prompt. You should:

• Clearly outline the core requirements in one or two sentences
• Add two or three key details
• Give concise aesthetic directions
• Add the critical technical specifics, such as resolution and aspect ratio.

Overall, try to keep your prompt to 150 words max.

Related: How AI Is Completely Changing YouTube Content and What Creators Must Do Now

2. Ignoring audience preferences and analytics

In the rush of generating AI video, there are several standard aspects of video marketing that often fall by the wayside — including quality control and analytics.

Resist the temptation to rely on visually stunning content only, without accounting for the preferences of your target audience.

As with classical video marketing, you need to be clear on exactly who the target demographic is and how you can best reach them.

Keep a close eye on analytics to gauge how your AI video performance compares to that of other types of content you’ve uploaded. Visually complex, AI-generated content does resonate with some demographics. Others will prefer a more human, authentic and classically produced video.

It’s critical to let your analytics inform your content strategy, and to adjust it depending on the platforms and audiences you are targeting.

3. Failing to tailor AI content to the target platforms

There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to video marketing across different platforms. TikTok, YouTube and Reels — all these social media platforms have their unique styles and audience preferences.

If you do not factor these nuances into your content strategy, your videos will end up underperforming.

The good news? AI video editing tools can, in fact, help you custom-tailor a video for different platforms, from reformatting long-form YouTube content to impactful Shorts and Reels, to adding just the right type of transitions and quick cuts popular on TikTok.

Related: This Fun Friday Night Family Ritual Taught Me a Surprising Lesson About AI and Creativity

4. Forgetting accessibility

Generating visually impressive content alone is not enough. To maximize the reach of your video, you also have to ensure that it’s accessible for as much of your audience as possible.

This includes going all-out on accessibility, including elements such as captions, voiceovers in multiple languages and audio descriptions.

Not only does this highlight your commitment to inclusivity for viewers who might have audio processing difficulties or visual impairments. It also caters to an international audience and silent scrollers — those 69% of people who watch online video with the sound off.

Fortunately, AI also offers options to facilitate this accessibility. Platforms like YouTube now offer not just auto-generated captions, which can be auto-translated into different languages. It also recently launched auto-dubbing, which has seen the reach of some channels that piloted it triple.

5. Going the AI-only route

Finally, the single most critical mistake that businesses make when it comes to AI video content is trying to go the AI-only route. That is, relying entirely on AI for the generation of video content, without extensive input from human video editors, strategists, or channel managers.

While AI is a fantastic tool to support video marketing, the human touch remains indispensable when it comes to creating content that stands out and resonates with your target audience.

Professional video editors can leverage AI tools to streamline their editing process, even seamlessly integrating AI-generated elements such as avatars, while preserving authenticity.

Similarly, YouTube channel managers can harness AI tools to better process vast amounts of analytics data. Interpreting that data and making actionable strategy suggestions, though, remains a human judgment call. Just like you can use AI transcription to lay the groundwork for custom captions — but you still need to double-check them, especially with respect to the names of your brand and products.

The bottom line? To successfully deploy AI — especially generative AI — for video marketing, human oversight and discretion are crucial. Use your judgment: Don’t blindly swim with the current of AI hype, but smartly ride the wave to success.

Generative AI has revolutionized video content. The barrier between having a vision for a video and implementing it is now lower than ever. For video marketers, this presents a conundrum. On the one hand, they can streamline their production process. On the other hand, there’s the threat of oversaturation and content inflation.

To effectively use AI for video marketing, businesses must avoid common pitfalls that result in bland, unoriginal content that will disappear in the waves of AI content already crashing over social media platforms.