New studio targets brands seeking creative direction rather than another video-generation subscription
ShotCode is launching an artificial intelligence-powered advertising studio, betting that the growing availability of video-generation software will create demand for a different service: deciding what brands should make with it.
The company will develop AI video ad concepts, scripts and finished short-form advertisements for SaaS companies, ecommerce businesses and consumer brands. Its work is intended for platforms including YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram Reels.
The proposition places ShotCode between self-service software and conventional production. Customers provide information about their products, audiences and commercial objectives; the studio takes responsibility for developing the creative approach and producing the agreed video assets.
The launch comes as industry research points to increasing adoption of generative AI alongside demand for people who can apply it. In a report published in July 2025, the Interactive Advertising Bureau said 86 per cent of surveyed video advertising buyers were using or planning to use generative AI to create video advertisements. Respondents expected AI-generated creative to account for 40 per cent of advertisements by 2026—a projection rather than a measured outcome.
A changing production bottleneck
Tools such as HeyGen and Higgsfield made production capabilities accessible, but did not resolve questions about the advertising idea, the script or how individual scenes should fit together.
The studio’s premise is that lowering the technical barrier to production does not remove the need for creative judgment. A generated scene may be visually convincing without explaining why a customer should consider the product.
For software businesses, ShotCode’s approach is to narrow a complex platform into a specific buyer problem and a relevant workflow. For ecommerce brands, it is to build a story around product use, combining generated material with authentic photographs and demonstrations where appropriate.
Cheaper production brings a second problem: more ads competing for the same viewer. As generative tools push up the volume of short-form video, the scarce resource is the viewer’s attention. Research by Karen Nelson-Field of Amplified Intelligence suggests an ad needs roughly 2.5 seconds of active attention before it starts to register in memory, and most digital ads never get there, as Medialister notes in its analysis of attention as a driver of long-term advertising impact. In a Reel or a Short, the opening seconds decide whether the rest is seen at all.
The distinction is between access to production capabilities and responsibility for delivering an advertisement.
Evidence of a services opportunity
Freelance marketplace data offers a signal that companies are paying for help with AI-enabled production.
Upwork’s 2026 skills report recorded 329 per cent year-on-year growth in AI video generation and editing, measured through freelancer earnings from US-originating demand during 2025. The figure describes activity on Upwork, not growth in the advertising production market as a whole.
Fiverr separately reported a 66 per cent increase in searches for AI video creators over the six months covered by its fall 2025 trends index. Search activity is an indicator of interest, rather than a measure of completed contracts or customer spending.
Together, the findings support a narrower conclusion than the disappearance of production work: businesses are seeking expertise in using the new tools.
Upwork also found that 45 per cent of surveyed business leaders would pay more to work with creative independent talent, while 47 per cent would pay a premium for innovative talent. Those findings concern independent professionals broadly, rather than AI advertising specialists alone.
The challenge of capturing value
For ShotCode, adoption of generative AI is an opportunity, but not proof of a defensible business.
Its model depends on customers valuing the selection of messages, development of concepts and management of production—not simply the ability to generate footage. Those services must remain useful as customers gain experience with the tools themselves.
The company aims to make it practical for brands to develop multiple advertising approaches without organizing a separate traditional shoot for each one. Lower production complexity could leave more room for experimentation, although it cannot ensure that the resulting advertisements generate profitable sales.
That is the central commercial test. ShotCode is not selling a new model or generation interface. It is selling judgment and execution around technologies customers may already be able to access.
Its prospects will depend on whether brands find that service more valuable than managing the process themselves.