Funny story: One random afternoon, Milo and I grabbed Quik, shot a no-frills 30-second AI clip, and hit publish without a second glance. There was zero polish, just real time messing around with the tool. Out of nowhere, traffic to our site jumped, almost overnight. The surprise bump felt a lot like the mini booms small shops keep bragging about in the latest headlines.

40dau’s latest observation shows: fast-forward to early 2025, and roughly seven in ten, give or take, small businesses are either already playing with AI video or at least promising to give it a shot this calendar year. That figure towers over what the same folks were reporting twelve months ago. The trend isn-t limited to Silicon Valley gadgets, either; corner stores and neighborhood salons keep showing up on the list too. Nobody can pin down the exact reason for the rush, but chatter at summer trade shows hints at a mix of oh-no-I-have-to-catch-up and huh-that-looked-fun, not a single shiny banner telling everyone to line up.

Imagine a sluggish afternoon at your corner caf, where the hissing espresso machine keeps a gentle pulse behind the register. The barista meanders around with a damp rag, sneaks a peek at her phone-could be a half-minute of TikTok she wants to perfect. The room never darts into real hurry, just dips in and out of quiet business, pausing now and then to tweak a filter or snip off a second that feels superfluous. Lean over the counter, and you might catch crumpled storyboard sketches wedged between the till and a spare jar, unfinished pieces nobody beats themselves up about leaving behind.

So heres the rub: can artificial intelligence plug the creative hole marketing keeps whining about, or does it always leave a little something vital on the floor? Plenty of owners shrug, point to the stat that says seventy-plus percent are slapping templates onto their brand videos, and move on. Voices in the room still debate whether a program really understands why a local pizza parlor jokes about charred crusts or why a family-run florist lingers on unusual blooms. Maybe were just riding hype; maybe this is the slow birth of something. Either way, the argument about trading humans for code, tidy cuts for awkward charm, never really settles down, even though the notifications keep flashing.

Funny how the ride from clunky DVD rentals to slick, AI-made snippets didnt follow a neat track. Ive read people kept burning their own discs for years, barely batting an eye while YouTube climbed to the top. Today live action floods feeds, yet deepfakes and flashy new gizmos keep sliding in and, well, not everyone trusts them. News outlets pointed out last fall that people still itch for proof, even if proof itself keeps changing shape.

Then a buddy named Milo started rattling off odds. He guessed seven in ten-but honestly the number felt squishier-and said way more mom-and-pop shops are snagging AI video platforms than they did a year back. Back in 2022 the topic barely popped at coffee-meetups, but now folks wont stop talking, saying edits that used to drag on for hours can wrap in minutes. Not every corner store is riding the wave just yet, yet its plain something moved under the surface.

OK, let me be real for a second. People perk up whenever the chat turns to saving a buck. Somewhere along the way, Quiet hallway talks revealed that nearly half-marketers swear at least one-third-of the big money was disappearing into video shoots.

Then along strode those shiny AI editing programs, and things flipped. Now those same marketers aren t hoarding cash so much as dicing and remixing what they already shot. Crossing platforms becomes the new gold rush, eyebrows shoot up when whole audiences still show.

Say you finally snagged that crisp product demo and plan to post it this afternoon. One crew just plops the clips into a tool-Cana Magic Studio, maybe-presses export, and calls it a win. Another crowd fiddles just a tad longer, sharpening lines, swapping frames, even testing three beats before they stop.

People still argue over storyboards; some say sketch every shot, others insist you should just hit record and see what sticks. Writers who push clips onto three or four feeds at once usually claim that audiences pull harder when the footage shows up in more than one place, but those wins can be all over the map.

Think of an AI video app as an electric screwdriver-it spins the bit fast enough to keep your wrist from seizing. Milo said that about seventy-odd small shops are fiddling with the tech right now, yet most folks still tap the wood twice before driving a final screw.

New to video? Grab a free Canva template and play around for a bit; most beginners say the Magic Studio button feels like wizardry. Short clips are a low-risk place to tinker and watch honest thumbs-up-or-down from friends or followers.

Some money pros point out that a full third of marketing dollars now trickles into video, though many quiet veterans just slice old footage and push it everywhere. A few quick side-by-side tests will usually show which size or shape actually sparks chatter, not just autopilot views. Perfect polish isnt the goal; a shaky lens telling a real story still beats flawless ads nobody believes.