Making a video ad with AI: what works, and what gives it away

A good share of the ads I edit are generated with artificial intelligence: a talking car for a car broker, a winter scene for a heat pump, a space saga opening for my own ad. It works. But generating a video is only half the job, and the easier half.

The steps

1. Script first. AI generates images, not ideas. The hook, the problem, the proof and the call to action are decided before opening any tool. The script template.
2. One scene per shot. You generate shot by shot, describing framing, light and movement precisely. A 30-second video often takes dozens of generations to keep the good shots.
3. Voice and sound. Voice-over, music, sound effects: that is what turns a series of generated images into an ad.
4. The edit. Pace, cuts, subtitles, on-screen text. That is where an AI video becomes watchable, or not.
5. Variants. Several hooks, 9:16 and 4:5 formats, so the campaigns can choose.

What gives a generated video away

• Hands and fingers, still often deformed.
• Text in the image: signs, labels, screens, often unreadable or wrong.
• Faces that change from one shot to the next.
• Physics: water, objects passing through each other, movements that are too smooth.
• An image that is too polished, which feels like stock footage.

Editing exists precisely to avoid those shots, cut before the flaw, or hide it under text.

What AI does better than a shoot

• The impossible or the expensive: a talking car, a house under snow in June, a film set.
• Speed: several concepts tested in a few days, without travel.
• Variants: ten different hooks cost far less to generate than to film.

What it doesn't replace

Proof. A generated kitchen was never fitted in a customer's home. To show a job, a before and after, a happy customer, you need real footage. Presenting a generated job as real would be misleading, and customers end up noticing.

The owner's face. For a local business, seeing the person who will come to your home remains a very strong argument. AI video or real filming, how to choose.

The right mix is often this: AI for the hook and the world, real footage for the proof.

What about the AI label?

Meta may add a label flagging content generated or edited with AI, especially photorealistic images. That isn't a problem in itself: an ad that owns its creative world, like a talking car, misleads nobody. The problem is passing off the fake as real.

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Further reading: Six hook mechanics, with real examples and My page on AI video ads.

Want an AI-generated ad for your business? Book a 30-minute call. We look at what suits AI in your case, and what deserves a shoot.