The map: seven categories and what each actually does
Image tools generate and edit stills: product shots, lifestyle scenes, backgrounds, resizing. Video tools generate short shots, re-frame footage for other ratios and edit. Audio tools produce voice-over, dubbing and music. Copy tools draft, adapt and translate. Design tools lay out templates and resize finished designs. Workflow tools carry briefs, reviews and approvals and hand files to the DAM. Analytics assistants tag creative and summarise performance, which is useful but only as good as the data underneath. Before buying anything, check the AI features already switched on inside the CMS, email platform and ad accounts the team pays for: part of the map is probably covered already, often without anyone having reviewed it.
Buy for the work you ship, not the demo
Demos show one striking image made from nothing. Most marketing output is derivative: the same campaign resized for a dozen placements, translated for each market, cut into short versions and refreshed for the season. Pull last quarter's output, count it by asset type, channel and language, then look at where the hours went. A team that turns one campaign into twelve markets needs adaptation, localisation and approval speed far more than a generator of fresh concepts. A team feeding a large catalogue needs batch imagery and product data connections. Hero ideas can stay with people; the volume underneath is where AI tools pay their way.
Consolidation versus sprawl
Sprawl rarely looks like a decision. One person starts using an image tool, another a voice tool, someone else a free copy assistant on a personal account. A year later the logo and fonts live in six places, each slightly out of date, files move between tools by download and re-upload, and nobody can say which model made the image in last week's ad. Consolidating means fewer platforms, each covering several media, sharing one set of brand rules and one approval record. Keep a register of approved tools, what data each may receive and who owns the vendor relationship, and revisit it at every renewal.
What the security review will ask
IT and legal ask the same questions of every tool, so five tools mean five reviews. Expect them to ask whether inputs train the vendor's models, how long prompts and files are kept, where data is processed, which subprocessors and model providers are involved, whether SSO and SCIM are supported, what audit logs exist and what licence covers commercial use of outputs. Marketing inputs are more sensitive than they look: briefs carry launch dates, prices and customer segments. With Synthetic White one review covers images, video, audio and copy: nothing customers upload trains any model, sign-in runs through SSO with SAML or OIDC plus SCIM provisioning, and data can stay in the EU or the US.
Updated 25 September 2026