Video editing
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March 24, 2025
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7 min
For the past couple of years, AI (Artificial Intelligence) has been one of the hottest topics in tech. Every day, there’s a new AI software, integration into physical products (like Samsung or Apple) or some new AI marketing bot that’s supposed to change everything.
However, while the promises are big, the results often fall short. Is that the case when it comes to AI video editing too? Let’s find out.
First, we need to understand how AI actually works. To keep it simple, AI generates content based on patterns and existing data, meaning, it cannot truly innovate.
True creativity often involves:
Our client, Sandro Saitta from viadata likes to describe Generative AI as offering an “average” of the web. This leads to predictable results and a lack of originality.
On the other side, video editors rely on intuition and experience to make creative choices. A professional editor can take into account:
This creates an emotional connection with the audience, a distinctive style, and creative flair that AI is currently incapable of achieving. It’s the difference between a generic, "cookie-cutter" video and a masterpiece that tells a compelling story.
All the AI tools are trying to sell you on one thing – efficiency. And to an extent, that’s true: AI can generate a video quickly… however, those videos almost never come out good enough to be posted without some degree of post-editing, review, and tweaking.
Even though the AI does the initial work fast, you will still need to spend time fixing its imperfections.
Here’s where the hidden time cost comes in: you’ll find yourself constantly reviewing the AI’s work and correcting mistakes. This can be especially time-consuming if you don’t have the editing experience to understand where the video needs improvement.
For example, an AI might generate a video with:
You’ll need to spend hours manually fixing these issues, something you could’ve avoided if a professional editor had handled it from the start.
By relying on AI, you’re not 100% outsourcing the video editing, and you’re still left with the burden of overseeing and correcting it.
As a business owner, your time is valuable, and it’s better spent on activities that move the needle forward, like serving clients, or improving sales and marketing.
Generally speaking, AI video quality is quite solid. However, if you really want to stand out from your competitors, you’ll have to post-edit and adjust the videos, which we mentioned in the previous section.
But beyond fine-tuning, AI also makes visible errors, some of which can be quite frequent and frustrating. One of the most common issues is typos in captions which can make you look unprofessional and careless.
Also, AI can be stubborn. If it keeps generating the wrong images or videos, there's little you can do besides tweaking your inputs over and over again.
Here’s two famous examples of this:
AI video editing might seem like an affordable option. Many tools market themselves as a cost-effective alternative to hiring a professional editor. However, there’s some hidden costs that add up over time.
First of all, no single tool can handle every aspect of professional video editing at a high level. This means that you’ll need multiple paid tools for a complete workflow:
Most of these tools have some kind of usage limitations. If you scale up your content production, you’ll end up paying more. And even after all this, you’re still only getting "acceptable" video quality.
So, in total, you’d need to spend at least $100/month just on the softwares to produce videos.
That doesn’t seem like a lot of money at first. However, the hidden cost is your time. You’ll still need to review and fix the AI’s mistakes, adjust pacing, and ensure storytelling flows well.
Let’s say AI saves you some initial editing time, but you still spend 5-10 hours a week reviewing and fixing errors. That adds up to 20-40 hours a month. This is the time that could be spent closing clients, improving your services, or scaling your business.
I’ll be honest here.
If you’re just starting out with your coaching or consulting business and you can’t afford a professional video editor, using AI tools might be a good option for you. They will help you create okay videos and will save you some time compared to doing everything manually.
However, if your business is taking off, and you want to scale to the next level, you simply cannot afford to waste time on content creation. The opportunity cost is just too high.
Not to mention that if you’re looking to attract more clients organically through YouTube, LinkedIn or Instagram, you’ll need videos that stand out and AI is not there yet to produce that level of quality.
Hiring a professional video editor can cost as little as $500/month for 10 short videos. That’s only slightly more than the AI tools, but with one major difference:
Instead of juggling multiple AI tools, fixing errors, and wasting hours, you get ready-to-post videos. This saves you time, stress, and ultimately money because your time is the most valuable asset in your business.
Let’s discuss how we can work together in a free 30-min consultation call.
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