AI Video Has Arrived. Here’s What That Means for Every Content Creator.

I recently made a synthetic video. It showed a professional presenter, confident on camera, delivering a clear and compelling message. It looked like a real production. It cost me nothing.

Both of those things matter. And they point in different directions.

This video was generated entirely using AI tools, at zero production cost.

The Numbers Are Difficult to Ignore

AI video is not an emerging trend. It has already arrived. Vendor estimates put the saving for simple formats, such as talking-head and social clips, at well over 80 percent of traditional production cost. Complex narrative work saves far less.

The adoption figures are firmer. In IAB’s 2025 video ad spend study, 86% of US digital video buyers were using or planning to use generative AI to build video ad creative. New Zealand buyers are unlikely to be far behind.

The capability curve is steep. The ethical conversation has not kept pace.

If your team is weighing up AI-generated creative for its own campaigns, our AI workshop for marketing teams works through the tools and the disclosure decisions on your own campaign material.

What the Coca-Cola Case Study Actually Shows

In November 2024, Coca-Cola remade its 1995 “Holidays Are Coming” Christmas advertisement with three AI studios. It became one of the most discussed pieces of synthetic content in marketing, and the reason is instructive.

Coca-Cola did not hide the AI. The campaign was presented as AI-generated from the start, and it tested well. Then, as Adweek reported, the mood turned. Viewers called it “soulless” and “a creepy dystopian nightmare,” and critics framed it as a brand replacing the artists behind one of its best-loved traditions.

Audiences judged whether AI belonged in that moment, and for a brand built on warmth and nostalgia, many decided it did not. Disclosure protects you from the charge of deception. It does not protect you from that judgement.

Leave AI undisclosed and you add the deception risk on top. About three-quarters of consumers want brands to disclose their use of AI. The organisations that understand this are already building disclosure into their workflows. The ones that do not are banking on audiences staying uninformed, which is not a sustainable position.

Two Obligations Every Creator Now Has

The accessibility of AI video creates two distinct obligations. They are not complicated, but they do require intention.

The first obligation is disclosure

If your content uses synthetic presenters, AI-generated voices, or fabricated footage in contexts where the audience would reasonably assume a real person is speaking or real events are depicted, say so. Most jurisdictions do not yet require it, but disclosure preserves trust, which is harder to rebuild than to maintain.

The context matters. An AI-generated background in a product demonstration is different from an AI-generated testimonial from a synthetic customer. AI-assisted video editing is different from a synthetic executive delivering a statement about your company values. The line is not always obvious, but the principle is: if your audience would feel deceived when they find out, disclose it before they do.

The second obligation is media literacy

If you are producing AI video, you are also consuming it. So is your team. So are your customers.

A European Parliamentary Research Service briefing projected that 8 million deepfakes would be shared in 2025, up from 500,000 in 2023. Detection has not kept pace. When researchers tested detectors on deepfakes actually circulating in 2024, open-source tools lost around half their accuracy compared with academic benchmarks, and commercial tools still fell short of trained human experts. The implication is that your team will regularly encounter synthetic video, some of it designed to mislead, and the skills to evaluate it critically are not yet widespread.

Media literacy is no longer a nice-to-have for communications and marketing teams. It is a core competency. Understanding how synthetic media is made, what its tells and limitations are, and how to verify what you are seeing is now part of professional due diligence.

What This Means Practically for Your Organisation

If you are in marketing, communications, or any content-producing function, AI video tools are already in your competitive landscape. Your competitors are using them or evaluating them. The cost and time advantages are real.

The real question is how to build the internal frameworks that let you use these tools effectively without creating the kind of trust damage that undoes the efficiency gains.

That means three things in practice:

1. A clear internal policy on when AI video requires disclosure in your specific context, reviewed by legal or governance before it is needed under pressure
2. Hands-on familiarity with the tools, so your team can evaluate AI-generated content critically rather than accepting it at face value
3. A workflow that treats disclosure as a feature, not a disclaimer. Audiences who know your brand uses AI responsibly are more forgiving of imperfection than audiences who feel misled

The same disclosure test applies to AI-generated images, which most teams can already make with tools they use every day.

The organisations that figure this out early will avoid the Coca-Cola outcome and build the kind of audience trust that becomes a durable competitive advantage.

I made a synthetic video at zero cost. What I am asking every content creator to consider is: what do you owe your audience now that anyone can do the same?