You’ve Gotta Burp: Knowing when you’ve hit the AI Quality Ceiling

We’ve been using AI in video production long enough now to say this with confidence:

AI is incredible.
AI is frustrating.
AI is absolutely not a “push button, make masterpiece” solution.

And honestly? That’s a good thing.

A Simple Idea That’s Not So Simple

Imagine you have an idea to take footage of a parking lot where it’s not snowing and make it a blizzardy winter wonderland.

 

AI should handle that without issue. Right?

Eh, maybe not.

The snow? It looks like sand. It’s falling in the wrong direction and altogether ignoring gravity. Any faces, hands or cars in your shot have mutated into hilarious yet terrifying blobs. And the best part is, AI spit all of this out even after you explicitly prompted it to “change nothing in the scene”.  

So you adjust prompts, tweak settings, try a different app, beg politely… but no matter how much you try, it’s just never quite right.    

 

 

  

Finally, it hits you – the only way forward is the old way. 

So, you manually rotoscope to restore the faces and bodies that AI mangled, layer in traditional particle simulations and meticulously clean up frame-by-frame to make the scene feel grounded and believable.

Yeah, not so easy.
You can absolutely use AI – but to make it look good… you have to do the work.

That is the part people don’t talk about.

 

What AI Actually Needs to Work

Internally, we joke about how AI is “sh***y by default.” This is not a dismissal, but an honest description of how it behaves without guidance.

Most of the “good” AI clips you see online weren’t made by AI alone.

They were made by smart video professionals who:

• Chose the right shots
• Gave AI perfect circumstances
• Hid imperfections with post-processing
• Knew when to stop asking AI for help and when to take over manually

Our Take: Post-production skills are more valuable than ever, not less.

AI generators tend to revert to the average of everything they’ve ever seen. The result?

• Perfectly handsome, totally soulless characters
• Lighting that’s technically flawless but emotionally wrong
• Random hallucinations (why does everyone suddenly have gloves?)
• Text that looks like a keyboard fell down the stairs

All of that still has to be curated, corrected, or outright fixed in traditional video software by someone who knows what “right” actually looks like.

The Quality Ceiling Problem

There’s a quality ceiling you hit when you rely on low-effort methods.

As video professionals, our job now is balancing high-effort, traditional craft with AI shortcuts that save time and unlock the impossible.

Right now, that hybrid approach is the only way to make thoughtful work that rises above the AI noise.

Sometimes cutting corners is good. But, sometimes it’s the fastest way to ruin credibility. Knowing the difference is the value.

AI Voiceovers: Technically Fine, Conceptually Weird

One of the most compelling elements of storytelling is authenticity. It connects the audience emotionally to a video’s message and builds brand trust. 

But, what if the audience knows what they’re watching is fake? Does that dilute the work’s authenticity?

We think yes.

AI voice generators for instance, are fantastic for scratch tracks, proof of concept, finding tone and pacing…

But are they “perfect”? Not yet.

Even when the artifacts are subtle, an audience with a keen ear is likely to know that the friendly mom voice waxing poetic about her favorite laundry detergent – is not a real human. It’s highly possible that AI awareness will decrease their emotional connection to the video’s messaging. 

Polish matters. Humanity matters. And sometimes the thing that feels “efficient” quietly erodes trust.

AI Can Do Things We’d Never Attempt Before

Here’s the flip side:
AI opens doors that were previously locked behind budgets and months of labor.

Making it snow in a scene where it wasn’t snowing?
Two years ago, that’s a call to a VFX house and $$$. Not anymore.

AI motion capture?
Shockingly convincing now.

 

Visual effects that once took massive teams can now be explored in days instead of months  — if you know how to clean up the mess afterward.

Why You Shouldn’t “Use AI” Willy Nilly

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Clients shouldn’t decide whether AI is used.
Video professionals should.

Not because AI is dangerous, but because misused AI can make your brand look cheap, lazy, or unintentionally ridiculous.

It isn’t enough to simply have access to AI tools. Everyone has those now.

It’s about finding a team (perhaps like ours wink, wink) with the experience, taste, restraint, and willingness to do the unglamorous work when the “magic” button stops working.

And trust us… it stops working a lot.