Eye-catching visuals have always been a key way to gain attention. This is especially true in this ever-evolving digital world, where attention span is shorter.
Artificial intelligence (AI), meanwhile, is accelerating the way brands are producing, distributing, and optimising their visual assets.
In this post, we’ll dig into AI-driven visual content marketing — what it is, why it’s important, how businesses can maximize the potential of their campaigns with this powerful new tool, and action steps to putting these ideas into practice.
The Power of Visuals + AI Explained.
Images, videos, and other visuals like infographics have always been crucial to marketing, after all, because they help people understand things, remember them, and share them.
Visual content marketing has been getting a lot of attention recently: one report noted that the visual content market was estimated to be worth $10.6 billion by 2024, and demand for visual content among marketers had increased around 40% in just one year. (Sproutworth)
Here are some more statistics vouching for the impact of AI on visual creations.
Nearly 70.6% of marketers feel that AI can do better than humans at making decisions on marketing projects. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
Among marketers, 62% said they were using generative AI to create image assets in 2025. (Salesforce)
Visual content is booming: it has been estimated that 34 million AI-generated photos are created every day. (Digital Silk)
This intersection of trends — visual content + AI — means that brands can create more visuals, faster, targeted towards their audience, and optimize how those visuals are used. That’s why “AI-powered visual content marketing” is quickly becoming a must-have in many marketers’ arsenals.
So what does AI-based visual content marketing look like?
Let’s take a closer look at the main ingredients:
Production of Visual Content Using AI
Rather than requesting a picture, or even more antiquated, waiting for a photo shoot to convert ideas into graphics in the 1990s fashion, digital marketers can now access AI tools for instant image generation.
A brand might, for example, feed in a prompt (“tech startup team brainstorming in a modern workspace”) in Gemini or ChatGPT and get visuals that align with a campaign theme. In fact, AI is widely used to create videos.
This accelerates the idea and production process.
Fifty-six percent of marketers are using AI to generate short-form videos, 53% to make images, and 42% for long-form videos, according to one report. (ColorWhistle)
Customisation and Distribution
AI can use past behaviour, audience data, and visual performance to decide which images/videos to show to whom, on which channel, and at what time. That is, your visual content isn’t “one-size-fits-all” but tailored.
Scale and speed
Brands can create more visual content faster because AI cuts out hours, or in some cases days, of manual work. This means you can more quickly adjust to trends, try out themes, and pivot campaigns.
The creation of 34 million AI-generated images daily is an example of how those limits are being stretched farther and apart. (Digital Silk)
Why It Matters For Your Brand
There are several clear benefits:
Higher engagement: Images have a higher likelihood of being seen, remembered, and shared compared to text only. If you employ AI to customize visuals for audience segments, you compound this effect.
Cost and time savings: Traditional visual production (photo-shots, graphic design, video editions) requires a lot of time and budget. AI enables brands to move more quickly and iterate more cheaply.” For example, companies using AI in content marketing have found that it leads to a higher ROI — one stat demonstrates 68% of respondents saw increased ROI from their content marketing efforts with the use of AI. (Synthesia)
Competitive edge: Lots of brands are still learning how to do AI + visuals well. Early adopters can stand out.
Personalised storytelling: With the use of AI, you can create visuals that appeal to specific audiences or even micro-segments, helping your brand feel more relevant.
Key Trends to Watch
Here are a few trends that will continue to define AI-led visual content marketing:
Growing adoption
One source discovered that 82% of users utilised AI-driven solutions to create visual content over the past year, with 77% claiming visual communication boosted business performance. (Canva)
The global AI in marketing market is expected to surge, for instance, with one stat pegging it at US $47.3BN in 2025 compared to US $12.05BN just last year. (SEO.com)
One source claims that there is a 9.5% increase in marketers planning to spend 50+% of their marketing budget on production of visual content in 2024. (Venngage)
Shift to multi-format visuals.
Consumers expect visuals on a multitude of channels: social media, stories, reels, websites, email, and ads. AI enables brands to create across formats.
Visuals + personalisation at scale
There is AI that can help customise visuals for each audience. As AI tools get smarter, brands can serve up different visual variants to different segments, test what works, and optimise.
Ethics, authenticity, and trust
As visuals have become easier to create, we are increasingly confronted with questions of authenticity, AI-generated content, bias, copyright, and brand safety. Marketers will have to strike the right balance between speed and trust when they send messages out.
How to make your own AI-powered visual content marketing part of your strategy
How to make your own AI-powered visual content marketing part of your strategy
Here’s how to begin:
Set your visual marketing objectives
What are your goals for these images? More brand awareness, more social engagement, better conversion? Clarity helps you pick the right metrics and workflows.
Evaluate your existing visual assets & processes.
What are you using for visuals now? How much time does it take to create one? What format(s) do you cover? Identify blockages, missing links, and AI infusion opportunities.
Choose the appropriate AI tools.
There are lots of AI tools for image generation, video creation, template automations, and optimisation platforms. Choose them based on the quality of their output, how easily they fit into your workflow, and how much you can control or brand your site.
Define Process for Creation, Review, and Branding Consistency
Even as AI accelerates the process, you still need brand guidelines, review processes, and human reviewers (to maintain quality, authenticity, and relevance). For example, if you are using AI-generated images, make sure they reflect the brand tone of voice, are inclusive, and that values are aligned.
Design for the People
Tap into data to find out what your target audience likes.
If you know one segment enjoys short-form video while the other likes infographics, adapt it. Leverage AI to produce several versions or formats (mobile versus desktop, square versus portrait) and A/B test them.
Distribute and Optimise
Leverage your standard channels (social, email, blog, ads) but monitor their performance. Use A.I. tools or analytics dashboards to find out which visual formats and variations are gaining some traction. Iterate: update the visuals, experiment with new prompts, test new formats.
Scale Thoughtfully
And once you become comfortable and start to figure out what works for you, there are ways that you can ramp up your output. But scaling doesn’t translate to “produce lots more”—it means produce lots better, test wisely, and refine continually.
Final Thoughts
If your business or brand hasn’t yet entered the AI visual content-creation space, you’re behind. Leveraging the power of AI for visuals helps you lower the time and cost associated with the process. Moreover, you can create more engaging content for your target audience. But it depends on the tool you use. Make sure the AI visual tool matches your brand strategy, creating graphics that resonate with your audience, measuring what works, iterating on it, and infusing everything with human judgment.
In fact, you can train the tools. You’ll be leading your brand forward in the time of AI-based visual content marketing.
