One year after Veo 3: Here’s what I actually think about AI video

Speaker A: Welcome back to Death to the Corporate Video. My name is Guy Bauer. I'm the founder and creative director of Umalt, a B2B video ad agency. And today we're talking about the AI video revolution that VO3 started, uh, about a year ago. So VO3 came out May 20, 2025. It's May 18, 2026 on the day I'm recording this. So it's a year. And I think it, the day V3 came out represented a huge shift in video ads. Even if, um, Even in non AI contexts like VO3 was so disruptive it sent shockwaves through the entire motion picture industry really too. And beyond B2B video ads into everything that looks like motion video. And I'm not just talking about VO3. Uh, I'm talking about everything that else has followed. Seed, Dance, Cling, Name all of these places, and uh, platforms that essentially exploded onto the scene once VO3 came out. So, uh, what are my thoughts? Where are we heading? And again, I'm not some prognosticator, but these are my thoughts one year after VO3 came out. And away we go. Okay, so first thought is quality keeps getting better and better and assume it will keep, continue doing that. Uh, it's almost like every time I open up VO3, they fix something that irritated me in the generation before. And I'm sure you've noticed that on other models too. ChatGPT. Every time I generate an image on ChatGPT, it, it's better than the last time I generated an image on ChatGPT. So assume that all, uh, the quality will just keep getting better and better. And you know, I don't think that's ever going to stop. So that's good news. Um, the bad news is that I still feel like performances are still non humans. So they look like humans, they sound like humans, but there's just something about it where I can always tell something is AI. Um, it just doesn't have the human imperfection built in or I don't know what it is, but I don't think that that's necessarily bad. And I'm not, you know, I'm not um, saying that AI is evil because the performances are non human. I almost think just like when Pixar came out, right? Think about the mid-90s. You know, there was Little Mermaid and Aladdin. Those were all hand drawn, classic style animations, frame by frame drawn by humans. Then Pixar came out with Toy Story and it represented this was just a different way to consume animation. And it took a little Bit of time for all of us to get used to this 3D thing. Um, still, you know, hand drawn animation and Pixar still, you would never think looks like a human. They are categories to themselves. I think AI is like a third category. So you have hand drawn human animation, you've got Pixar 3D stuff, and I think you have AI animation. I think AI fits into a category of animation. I'm talking about pure AI movies. Right? Pure AI videos. To me they seem like their own category. And if you accept them for their own category, they're just as non human as Pixar, which is just as non human as hand drawn. Now, I'm not saying that humans, you know, are, are not important or discounted as part of the process. I just mean in terms of what I'm looking at, you know, all three of them, you do not feel like you're looking at real people. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. When I watch a Pixar movie, I don't go, well, this doesn't look like a real human. So I have to discount everything said in this. No, I just enjoy it for what it is. And I think that's where AI is headed is we will develop a third muscle, handdrawn animation, 3D and AI. And it'll just be a third different way to consume motion pictures. But humans, like shooting humans will always be the, I don't even want to say the preferred, but it will always be a channel. So instead of three channels, now there's four. So, uh, that's point number two. Hopefully that wasn't too rambling. Uh, the third point is that the same problem is still the same, is that you need great ideas that haven't done before. And that's equally as hard to do in live action with humans, in hand drawn animation, in Pixar 3D and AI. The hardest part about doing anything is always the idea. You always have to start with the idea and the story you want to tell. And that's hard in whatever medium you choose. Photography, painting, uh, making art out of pencil, graphite, whatever. Any, uh, medium. The idea is the hardest thing. No medium. We don't consume things by the medium. Maybe in like the first days of VO3, people were saying, I can talk now. And that was interesting, you know, because we were. The medium was brand new. But, you know, the novelness of V3 and all AI services that look and sound like V3 has been worn off, has worn off. And that's why we're in this kind of lull right now where people are like, uh, maybe AI isn't that great. No, it is great. It's just we've reverted back to the classic problem is, does anyone have anything they want to say? Um, AI just represents a new channel, a new medium in which to paint. But you still need a great idea and that's just as hard and just as rare. Uh, finally, the fourth point is to me, and this goes along with point three, is you need taste. And who are the people with taste? Artists and storytellers. And so I think the again, that novelness where you could just have demonstrations of AI or an AI say something and it goes viral, that's over with now. It's truly, do you have a story to tell? And also, do you use your taste in a way that the AI doesn't feel sloppy, that it feels directed, that it feels authentic? And that authentic doesn't mean that you've tricked people into thinking they're looking at real humans. Authentic means that it feels like someone took care with this, that there's taste involved. So those are my four thoughts. One, quality keeps getting better and better. Two, performances are still non human body, but performances in Pixar are still non human. And hand drawn animation is non human. So this is just its own category of non humanness. It will never take the place of live action, but it doesn't mean that the medium itself is flawed. Number three, the same problem is still the same. You need a great idea that hasn't been done before. And number four is you're still going to need taste. So they're creative directors in your company or the marketing leaders, the storytellers. All of those people are still needed because they need to deploy their taste against your brand message, your brand values, your brand vision and all that stuff. The product still has to have taste. So that's it. Those are my thoughts. I'd love to hear what you think since VO3 came out, guy at umalt. Com and uh, yeah, see you next time.