We have entered the era of AI generated content. As Wayne Boulais, Co-Founder & Managing Director Tensility Venture Partners, states:
"[AI generated content] is going to be very, very pervasive, and it’s going to happen very, very quickly.
12 months from now you’re going to look back and say, “oh my god. I had no idea this was going to be adopted so quickly.”
…If you’re not [using] it by the end of this year, you’re too late."
AI content generation is now so sophisticated and such high quality that, in some cases, it's indistinguishable from human generated content. And done at a fraction of the time and cost it takes for a human.
Boulais continues,
“(B)ecause it’s trained on language models, it actually does the structure of how you would deliver the piece in a linguistically correct and well understood way. Ask it to do a blog post, any topic, and it will do it.”
We went into how AI generated content works and the benefits/controversies in our last blog.
This time, we're digging into how AI content can be integrated with SaaS how-to video production.
Okay so, technically, no. Not directly.
AI generated programs can get you about 50-75% of the way there– script-wise. Basically, it can get a blank page filled with well-written, relevant content in a matter of seconds.
We asked ChatGPT itself about the matter:
How does technology like ChatGPT open up opportunities to further streamline how-to video production?
Technology like ChatGPT opens up opportunities to further streamline how-to video production by automating the writing of scripts for these videos. The language model can generate clear and concise scripts in natural language, reducing the time and effort required for scriptwriting, and allowing content creators to focus on other aspects of video production such as filming and editing. Additionally, ChatGPT can also generate captions for videos, making them more accessible for people with hearing disabilities.
Keep in mind, any AI generated script must still be carefully edited for accuracy, flow, tone, and tweaked to fit the specific considerations and goals of your project.
You definitely need a real-life content specialist to oversee the process. Plus, subject matter experts still know the best practices to communicate to their audience.
But can ChatGPT and the like actually generate videos? Short answer: no.
So yeah, technically, the title of this blog is slightly misleading, because you cannot-- technically-- make AI generated videos directly from something like ChatGPT. Just the script.
ChatGPT is a great tool for creating language content, but it can only use media that already exists. It cannot create images or media. A chatbot can only generate output from existing input. It can’t create something out of thin air, or get into your documentation on its own, or record a video of your software.
You can use it to generate a script draft, but you’d still need to shoot the how-to video yourself.
Fortunately, there is a platform that automatically generates videos from scripts:
Videate is an RPA engine that makes videos.
Videate syncs the script to visuals straight from your software, generates actions like human-like mouse movements and animations like highlights, callouts, etc. It also generates narration using top-of-the-line text-to-speech technology. With Videate, you won’t have to worry about screen capture, voiceover, or post-production editing.
By combining the AI generated text from ChatGPT with Videate, SaaS companies can streamline their software video production workflow by orders of magnitude.
Imagine being able to create a complete, continuously updated library of how-to video content for every update of every feature of every product in your portfolio. And still having enough bandwidth to get all your other work done, too.
In the future, users and companies will likely have a subscription model to something like ChatGPT. Within that profile, users can then train their own private corner of the AI by inputting things like product documentation. Then, combined with the general knowledge that the chatbot already has, the chatbot can be prompted to make accurate scripts that are specific to a SaaS company’s products.
Right now, though, it's still early days. There are security concerns: there’s no source documentation for anything ChatGPT writes, so how would anyone know if proprietary content stays private and secure?
Then, there’s a learning curve for how to input information to get the best possible output. In the future, there may be a whole function dedicated to the art and science of "prompt engineering".
In the meantime, a chatbot can write a solid, generalized script ready for an internal subject matter expert to edit and fill in additional details.
Much easier than starting from scratch.
Once you have a script, Videate takes on the video production workload.
Generate a script using ChatGPT (or another AI content generation tool)
Edit the script for accuracy, flow, and tone of voice using Google Docs, Office 365, or Oxygen XML Web Author (or within the Videate platform itself)
Using Videate, plug your script copy into the document-reader tool of your choice. Either use the Videate plug-in with Google Docs, Office 365, Oxygen XML Web Author, or simply paste it directly into the Videate platform
Add Videate tags to the script for the on-screen actions required with the Videate plug-in.
Render the video.
Voilà! You’re done.
And speaking of French words, you can easily make multiple language versions of the same video with Videate.
We're excited about the possibilities that generative AI brings. We're also the only video platform that's perfectly poised to take advantage of this new technology. Videate is the forefront of AI generated video content for SaaS companies.
We can help you create a robust and always up-to-date software how-to video library.
Stop trying to work harder and work smarter – get a demo today and see how just one person can generate an entire video library in less than a day!