The AI revolution sweeping video creator tools

Streamlining the content creation process has become a key battleground for social video platforms. They are banking on AI shouldering most of the menial tasks associated with publishing a video, freeing up creator time to publish more content. They also hope that by using AI tools to lower the barrier to entry, more people will make the jump from content consumption to content creation. With more content meaning more advertising spend, it is unsurprising that YouTube and TikTok are channelling significant time and investment into improving video creator tools.

Among those innovations is YouTube Create, a smartphone app that allows users to shoot video, edit clips, apply effects, and add music and captions before publishing on the platform. The app is being compared to CapCut, the ByteDance-owned short-form video editing software. Among the YouTube Create features is a beat matching tool that speeds up the process of matching clips to the beat of the background music – making what was once arguably a tricky task for a seasoned video editor simple enough to do on a smartphone.

And this is part of the appeal. Not only do AI-powered creator tools make video production quicker, they help amateur video creators punch above their weight. At the end of last year, YouTube chief executive Neal Mohan rolled out AI-driven topic suggestions for videos: AI generated photo and video backgrounds for short-form content, AI support for selecting copyright-free music, and an AI-powered dubbing tool. In a sweep, these tools improve the chances of creators turning out premium quality content: a move that could help transform more budding creators into monetizable assets for YouTube.

However, this opportunity is not YouTube and TikTok’s alone. AI is a phenomenon that is simplifying and enhancing processes within the video creator tools economy. But, in doing so, it poses questions to video creator tools companies about who their users could and should be. Complex video editing tasks are being simplified and made manageable for the average consumer. If they want to capture the long-tail opportunity, some video creator tools companies may need to pivot from focusing on a smaller userbase of amateur or professional video creators, towards a larger userbase of consumer creators.

MIDiA will be exploring such issues as it builds out a new coverage stream focused on video creator tools. We are building on our work in music by tracking and analysing the hardware and software companies at the top and bottom of the video creator tools value chain. In the coming months, we will be publishing a flagship report dissecting the video creator tools market and the opportunities that lie within. This will be accompanied by a webinar featuring leading figures from across the video creator tools space.

To hear more about MIDiA’s video output, contact video analyst Ben Woods, or lead video analyst Tim Mulligan by emailing ben@midiaresearch.com or tim@midiaresearch.com