Brands are leveraging AI to elevate video creation, boost engagement and improve overall accessibility

Wistia, a leading video marketing platform for businesses, released its 2025 State of Video Report. The annual report, based on insights from over 14 million videos, 100,000 businesses and a customer survey of 1,300 professionals, highlights key trends shaping how videos are created, optimized and shared by marketers. This year’s findings revealed a notable surge in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in video production, enabling marketers to quickly and easily create high-quality videos. Despite economic concerns, video budgets are also on the rise with marketers seeing strong returns across lead generation and conversions.

AI is helping make videos faster, smarter and more accessible

With open-source models for video generation gaining traction, access to AI video capabilities is becoming significantly more democratized. For marketers who lack technical expertise, AI empowers them to fast-track production and achieve more with fewer resources. This year’s report confirmed that brands are investing rapidly in AI, with 41% using AI for video creation—a large jump from only 18% in 2024.

Among brands who use AI, it’s primarily used for either pre-production planning (think scripting and brainstorming) or post-production editing (like voice dubbing, captions or generating visuals) with over 60% of respondents saying they have used or plan to use AI captions for their videos. Since 2021, the use of captions in videos has increased by 572%, making it the most widely adopted video accessibility feature among marketers. The second and third most popular AI tools brands use or plan to use are voice dubbing at 38% and language translation at 31%.

“AI is completely changing the game for video,” said Chris Savage, CEO and co-founder of Wistia. “The barriers to video creation are disappearing. Now, anyone (not just pros) can make high-quality videos. And it’s not just creation. AI-driven tools like dubbing and translation are making it easier than ever for brands to reach global audiences. We’re at a turning point. Video is about to get a whole lot more dynamic, engaging, and impactful.”

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Marketers are strategically maximizing engagement and conversion rates

As video marketing evolves, 34% of respondents rank engagement rate as the number one success metric for videos followed by 29% saying conversion rate. Engagement rate is determined based on the average amount of a video that a viewer watched and a video’s conversion rate is the percentage of viewers who take action on an interactive element. These metrics serve as indicators of what video types and lengths perform best. The report found that videos under 1 minute had the highest average engagement rates at 50%, followed by 1 to 3 minutes at 46% and 3 to 5 minutes at 45%. However, overall video engagement reached a four-year low, with 3 to 5 minute videos seeing the steepest decline at 10%. This drop is likely due to the proliferation of short-form content and viewers’ increasingly high standards for quality videos. Despite this trend, marketers continue to see high levels of engagement on medium-length (5-30 minutes) and long-form videos (30-60 minutes).

How-to videos continue to see the highest engagement, with shorter videos (under a minute) reaching 82% engagement rate and longer videos (5-30 minutes) holding at 58%. Company culture, educational and product videos also saw around 50% engagement rate for videos under a minute, 1 to 3 minutes and 3 to 5 minutes.

Additionally, despite a decline in the use of lead generation forms within videos, conversion rates have increased by 11% over the past year. Marketers are seeing the highest impact from well-placed calls to action (CTAs). In short videos under 60 seconds, CTAs placed in the first quarter of the video convert nearly 40% of viewers.

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Brands double down on video despite economic concerns and challenges

Despite economic concerns, only 5% of companies are reducing their video budget this year, while over half (57%) are investing more in video. The main drivers influencing video production last year were company goals and objectives (60%) and product or service launches (52%). In 2024, brands regularly prioritized educational, product and social media videos.

However, barriers to video creation still exist. The primary factors holding businesses back from making more video content include company size and resources (58%), cost (38%) and technical capabilities (25%). Most companies are not struggling with generating ideas or securing buy-in from executives or team leaders for additional video production.