What is the process for making an AI commercial?

Eight stages: brief, research, script, storyboard, animatic, generation, sound and delivery. Generation comes only after framing and rhythm are proven on paper and in an animatic, and three to six takes per surviving shot is normal.

How long does an AI commercial take to produce?

Days to a couple of weeks, versus weeks to months for traditional production, at roughly 70 to 90 percent lower cost. Most of the schedule goes to brief, research, script, storyboard and animatic, not generation.

Why do AI commercials need a storyboard and animatic?

The storyboard proves framing and the animatic proves rhythm before any generation credits are spent. If the film drags at animatic stage it will drag at final, so pacing failures get caught when they cost minutes, not budget.

AI Commercials: The Real Process, from Brief to Film

There is a fantasy version of AI commercials: type a prompt, wait ninety seconds, ship the film. Then there is the version that actually produces work a brand can put its name on. We run the second one every week. Here is the pipeline, step by step, with the decisions that happen inside each stage.

What an AI commercial actually requires

An AI commercial is still a commercial. It has to sell something to someone, in a format that platform algorithms and human attention both tolerate. The engine changes how images get made. It does not change what a film has to do. Our method, Sentimagem, rests on three pillars: Presenca, keeping the mood coherent from first frame to last; Engenharia, directing the camera in motion instead of accepting whatever the engine offers; and Narrativa, putting the story engine before any image. Direction over generation. The pipeline below is that method turned into a schedule.

The AI commercial pipeline, stage by stage

1. Brief. Everything starts with what the client actually needs, not what they first ask for. A brief that says "we want a cool AI video" is not a brief. We push until it says something like: this film exists to make a distributor in another market take a meeting. One sentence of purpose beats ten pages of adjectives.

One rule we hold hard: the client's own strategy leads. Our research arms the conversation, it never overwrites the client's positioning.

2. Research. Before any script, we go digging. In our lab we have learned that the best material is rarely in the assets the client sends. On one recent project, the founder sent us a folder of videos, and the gold was sitting on their own website: language, proof points, imagery they had stopped seeing because they walked past it every day. Research means studying the client's world until we can see it fresh.

3. Script. The script for an AI commercial is shorter than you expect and more precise than you expect. Every line has to survive two tests: does the viewer need this, and can the engine render this? A gorgeous sentence that describes an unfilmable image is a wasted line.

4. Storyboard. We storyboard every shot before generating anything, because a storyboard proves framing. What goes in each frame, where the subject sits, where the logo enters. In our lab, brand marks enter through the start frame by reference before generation, not pasted on in post: the engine treats the mark as part of the world instead of a sticker.

5. Animatic. The storyboard proves framing. The animatic proves rhythm. We cut the still frames to the intended timing, often with a scratch voiceover, before spending a single generation credit. If the film drags at animatic stage, it will drag at final. This step catches pacing failures when they cost minutes, not budget.

6. Generation. Now, and only now, the engines. Each storyboard frame becomes a generation plan: which engine, which resolution, which references anchor the shot. Two practical rules from our lab. First, engines bill a 4 second minimum per clip, so we design longer fused shots and cut them in the edit rather than paying for ten fragments. Second, native 1080p visibly beats upscaled 720p, so we generate at delivery resolution.

Expect iteration. Three to six takes per surviving shot is normal. This is not the tool failing. This is directing.

7. Sound. Sound is half the film and the half most AI commercials forget. Voice, music, sound design, mix. A generated shot with real sound design reads as cinema. The same shot with a stock music bed reads as a template.

8. Delivery. Masters in every aspect ratio the media plan needs, captions, cutdowns, and a file structure the client's team can actually navigate a year from now.

From brief to film: how long it really takes

Traditional commercial production runs in weeks to months. This pipeline runs in days to a couple of weeks, and cuts cost by 70 to 90 percent against a traditional shoot. But notice where the time goes: brief, research, script, storyboard and animatic are more than half the schedule. The generation stage, the part everyone thinks is the whole job, is the fast part.

That inversion is the honest heart of AI commercial production in 2026. With 86 percent of advertisers using or planning generative AI in video, access to engines is no longer an edge. The pipeline around the engine is.

An AI commercial is still a commercial: the brief, research, script, storyboard and animatic take more than half the schedule, and the pipeline around the engine is the real edge.