Is AI Taking Over My Video Business?
I think I'm building the thing that makes my business obsolete. And I'm not sure I should stop.
I want to be honest with you about something that’s been sitting in the back of my head for months.
I think my company - the video production agency I’ve spent years building - might be one of the first casualties of the AI wave. Not because I’m doing anything wrong. Not because the market dried up. But because the math just changed.
And the hardest part? I can see it happening in real time.
The math that keeps me up at night
Here’s the pitch I’ve made to dozens of brands over the years: hire us to produce a video campaign. Concepting, scripting, shooting, editing, delivery. Done right, it’s a five-figure engagement - sometimes more, depending on scope.
It’s not cheap. But the argument was always: you need people who know what they’re doing. Story structure, cinematography, the stuff that separates content that converts from content that just exists.
Now ask me to make that argument to a brand that just subscribed to an AI video platform for $200 a month - one that spits out unlimited iterations, instant variations, no invoices, no revision rounds, no scheduling.
Why would they pay us five figures when they can pay $200 and get endless output before their morning coffee?
I don’t have a great answer to that. Not yet.
The market that moves first always takes the hit
This isn’t a new story. It happens in waves.
Each time, there’s a window where the professionals insist the new thing can’t replicate what they do. And each time, they’re right — until the “good enough” threshold quietly crosses the line that matters to the people writing the checks.
I think video production is next. And specifically, the mid-market agency (exactly the kind I run) is the most exposed. Big studios with IP, talent relationships, and prestige will hold on longer. Freelancers who are nimble and cheap will adapt. The middle? That’s where the squeeze happens first.
Here’s where it gets weird
I’ve been building AI-assisted production tools on the side - quietly, for a little while now. Workflows that automate the parts of video production that are currently bottlenecks: scripting, asset sourcing, timeline assembly.
I’m not ready to talk about all of it yet. But I’ll say this: the more I build, the more I understand exactly how the disruption works from the inside.
The honest thought I can’t shake: I might be building the thing that eventually undercuts my own agency’s value. Not because I want to. But because if I don’t build it, someone else will. And I’d rather be the one who understands the machine than the one who gets replaced by it.
What I actually think the answer is (maybe)
I keep coming back to one idea: the video was never really the product.
What brands are actually buying - when they hire a production company - is judgment. Taste. The ability to translate a business objective into a story that moves people. Those things aren’t in the prompt. They’re in the years of pattern recognition that precede it.
The question is whether brands will continue to pay for that judgment once the execution becomes free. Some will. Many won’t.
And I genuinely don’t know which side of that line my business will land on.
I’m not panicking. But I am paying attention. And I think anyone running a creative services business right now should be asking themselves the same uncomfortable question I’m sitting with:
If your deliverable became free tomorrow, what would you still have left to sell?
I’ll let you know when I figure it out.
Cheers,
Alex