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If you have ever worked in digital marketing, or even just wanted to create some videos to show off your small business or creative endeavor, you know that it’s a time-intensive and often finicky task. Not only must you conceive of the video, draft a script, film or pull the footage needed — you must then put it all together and edit it to fit your distribution channels: web, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.
Each of these social networks and platforms has its own video publishing options and recommended aspect ratios, so cutting a video to fit multiple platforms is a challenge in-and-of-itself. But what if there was a way to simplify all that: Just copy-and-paste existing text — say, a press release or training document — and generate a video directly from it, automatically sized to fit multiple platforms?
That’s the promise of the new in-browser, text-to-video AI generation feature announced today by Storykit, a Swedish software-as-a-service (SaaS) company.
Video from any text — even meeting notes
The new feature from Storykit allows marketers and anyone interested in generating video to quickly convert written content into SEO-ready video campaigns. The user can simply paste text into Storykit’s web-based “AI script creator” field and the tool generates a new video script from it.
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A spokesperson for StoryKit told VentureBeat via email that the feature is built atop OpenAI’s GPT-3, 3.5-turbo and GPT-4, “for the script writing part,” but that a “proprietary AI, Coen” is used “for storyboard and video building.”
Storykit says the tool can turn any text — from product descriptions to blog archives to even the most minimal notes — into video. As the company website reads: “Haven’t even got a text? Just the bare bones of an idea? A half-mumbled voice note? That works, too.”
Storykit’s AI pairs text with appropriate images and clips to generate comprehensive videos while preserving brand messaging and identity. Fredrik Strömberg, Storykit CPO and founder, says that “users can trust that their messaging remains on-brand since their videos are based on their own input.”
VentureBeat’s test of the new software resulted in mixed success. Initially the tool provided an error message saying it was “experiencing too many requests,” but within a few moments, we were able to generate a competent video script from the StoryKit news release itself.
Storykit’s new text-to-video AI tool also allows enterprise customers to instantly translate their script and video into multiple languages. Helpful drop down menus contain categories for the types of videos that enterprise customers large and small might want to generate: recruitment, case stories, e-commerce — even experimental.
Storykit’s strategy
Storykit believes this could democratize the video creation process and streamline workflows for companies across the globe. Storykit CEO and founder Peder Bonnier calls it a “game changer.”
Founded in 2018, Storykit today claims more than 1,000 customers including BKS Bank, which uses the company’s video creation capabilities to produce high-quality content at scale.
According to Bonnier, the new AI tool is intended to broaden the video creation process, making it accessible to individuals outside of specialized roles.
“Input any source material into the tool, choose which output you want — then you’re done,” said Bonnier. “This means that video creation is no longer a specialized role but a task anyone can do.”
The company does not list pricing publicly on its website (it has different price tier options that customers can inquire about). It does offer a free trial version of its software allowing customers to make multiple videos.
According to the company, Storykit seeks to allow its customers to capitalize on the popularity of text-driven videos on social media, which many customers watch without sound. Its new text-to-AI tool joins others in the fast-moving space, including Runway ML‘s new mobile app launched last month.
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