Do We Use AI? Yes. But Probably Not How You’d Think.
March 4, 2026 · John
Genie In AI Bottle?
Every few weeks someone asks us some version of the same question: “Are you using AI?”
The honest answer is yes. But the follow-up is always more interesting than the yes.
Because the question usually implies one of two things: either they’re hoping we’ll say no, because they’re worried about what AI means for the craft they’re paying for, or they’re hoping we’ll say yes in a way that means their project will be faster and cheaper. Both are understandable. Neither tells the whole story.
So here’s the full version.
What We Actually Use It For
Scripts and copy refinement. Before a single camera is rigged or a single frame is rendered, there’s language. Voiceover scripts, on-screen copy, interview frameworks; the words that carry a video’s message. AI has become a genuinely useful pressure-tester here. Not a writer, but an editor. We’ll run a draft through and ask it pointed questions: Does this sound like the client or does it sound generic? Is the pacing right for a 90-second explainer? Is the opening line earning attention or wasting it? It’s available at 11pm, it has no ego, and it’s surprisingly good at catching the moment when we’ve drifted away from a client’s established voice.
Tone matching and brand consistency. Every client has a voice. Some have it documented in a brand guide, others carry it intuitively. Either way, when we’re producing content across a series or a campaign, consistency matters. AI helps us audit that consistency before it becomes a problem in post. Think of it as a second set of eyes that never gets tired of reading.
Accelerating the administrative layers. Production work involves a lot of friction that has nothing to do with creativity: shot list formatting, project brief summaries, email follow-ups, proposal drafts. AI handles a meaningful portion of that friction now. Which means more of our actual working hours go toward the things that can’t be automated: the visual problem-solving, the edit instinct, the moment on set when you know you need one more take.
What We Don’t Use It For
We don’t use AI to think for us.
That might sound like a platitude, but it has a specific meaning in production work. AI doesn’t know why a particular client’s audience responds to authenticity over polish. It doesn’t understand the difference between a cut that’s technically correct and a cut that actually lands. It can’t tell you when breaking the format is exactly right, or when a script that reads perfectly will feel hollow on camera.
It doesn’t have taste. And in this business, taste is the whole job.
We’ve also found that AI-generated creative, when used as a starting point rather than a refinement tool, tends toward the average. It synthesizes what already exists. The work we’re most proud of over the years has come from pushing past what already exists, from finding the angle or the treatment that surprises the client and their audience both. That instinct doesn’t come from a prompt.
Why This Matters to Our Clients
There’s a version of “we use AI” that should concern you as a client. It’s the version where the tool is doing the creative heavy lifting while a human mostly supervises the output. The result tends to look like everything else, competent, forgettable, interchangeable.
There’s another version that should reassure you. It’s the version where experienced creative professionals use every available tool to sharpen their work, eliminate unnecessary friction, and deliver something better and faster without compromising the judgment that makes it worth watching.
We’re firmly in the second camp. Have been since the beginning, whatever the tool of the moment happened to be.
The Longer View
Twenty-plus years in production means we’ve watched a lot of tools get declared transformative. Non-linear editing. Motion graphics software. DSLR video. Drone cinematography. Each one genuinely changed what was possible. Each one also got weaponized by people who confused access to the tool with mastery of the craft.
AI is no different. It’s genuinely useful, increasingly capable, and completely dependent on the judgment of the person using it.
The craft hasn’t changed. The storytelling instinct hasn’t changed. The tools just keep getting more interesting.
And we’ll keep using all of them, in exactly the way that serves the work.
Creative Bay Media is a boutique video production and animation studio available for full-scale productions, animated explainer series, podcast video, social media content, and motion graphics projects. If you’re curious how we’d approach your next project, we’d love to hear from you.