TL;DR
- Amazon just made product videos on its platform obsolete, for agencies, at least. Its new AI tool creates polished, motion-filled ads in under five minutes from a single product image.
- Nova Reel is the next phase, a developer tool that generates 2-minute narrative videos, signalling Amazon’s move into long-form, AI-generated storytelling.
- Creative agencies are at risk, especially those producing basic product videos, social ads, or performance content. The work is now free, fast, and built into the platform.
Amazon’s venture Amazon Ads and its new AI video tools could reshape how product content is made, and who makes it.
While many creative agencies explore AI through experimental GPTs and custom agents, Amazon has taken a more direct approach, embedding generative tools into the infrastructure of commerce itself. Not just reshaping content creation, but quietly automating the very jobs agencies are trying to protect.
Amazon has introduced Amazon Ads. An AI video tool that allows sellers to generate high-quality product videos in minutes. It requires no camera crew, no editing software, and no agency. Just a few product images and a short description.
The result: a clean, platform-native video featuring voiceover, motion graphics, music, and product callouts, all created automatically.
This is more than a feature rollout. It’s Amazon formalising its role not just as a marketplace but as a media production platform.
What the Amazon Ads Actually Does
Launched in beta in September 2024, the Amazon Ads Video Generator now available to all U.S. advertisers as of June 2025
According to Amazon, core capabilities include:
- Converts a single product image into an 8–21 second video ad with photorealistic motion, in under 5 minutes
- Supports up to 6 video variations per product, offering creative diversity
- Generates realistic action scenes — e.g., a wristwatch being checked, toys in motion, pets in context
- Allows multi-scene sequencing, text overlays, music, logo placement, and a timeline editor
- Can summarise existing long-form content to create shorter, optimised video ads
- Offers image-to-video motion clips similar to GIFs
- Fully integrated with Amazon Ads and Sponsored Brands
- Automatically pulls images, copy, and reviews from listings
- Free to use for authenticated Amazon sellers and advertisers
This Isn’t the Only Tool Amazon Has Released
AWS Bedrock – Nova Reel
Alongside the seller-facing Video Generator, Amazon Web Services has launched Nova Reel, a developer-facing video foundation model available through AWS Bedrock.
Key capabilities:
- Generates narrative video sequences up to 2 minutes
- Offers multi-shot manual controls for scene-by-scene editing
- Designed for developers and enterprises, not public-facing brands (yet)
- Produces consistent visual style and coherent story structure
Nova Reel tells us that Amazon is laying the groundwork for long-form generative storytelling.
What This Means for Agencies
Meta isn’t far behind. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company is developing tools that let advertisers upload a single image or URL, set a budget, and let AI handle the rest, creative, targeting, and optimisation, entirely in-app by 2026. Zuckerberg’s vision? Ads made by AI, delivered by AI, measured by AI. For creative shops built around producing assets or running paid campaigns, this is essentially deletion.
Pinterest, by contrast, hasn’t automated the creative process. Its focus remains on enhancing ad formats like Promoted and Idea Pins, and nurturing visual tools like Shuffles. For now, it’s positioning itself as a creative enabler, not a replacement. That means agencies, especially those who understand inspiration, community, and visual storytelling, still have a role to play. But the writing is on the wall: wherever the platform becomes the production house, agencies must either move upstream into strategy or risk being cut out of the loop entirely.
Several types of creative businesses will feel immediate impact:
- Amazon-focused content studios producing listings, A+ media, and product videos
- Production agencies offering explainers or high-volume product shoots
- Freelancers and boutique outfits selling Shopify or Meta ad content
- Marketplace brand consultancies with in-house creative retainers
- Paid media agencies bundling video asset production into their service offering
Clients now have a fast, free, in-platform alternative. The kind of work that once cost £300 to £3,000 per clip now happens with a few clicks.
Welcome to a Workplace Already Stretched Beyond Its Traditional Limits
According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, meetings after 8 p.m. are up 16% year-over-year, and nearly one-third of employees are still checking emails at 10 p.m. As the workday bleeds into the evening, expectations for content haven’t slowed, they’ve accelerated.
The rise of automation isn’t just about cutting production costs; it’s about relieving pressure in a system that’s running on fumes. The creative workload is growing. The human energy to match it isn’t.
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Take a brand like Nike. Previously, launching a campaign like the ZoomX “Summer Drop” meant briefing an agency, booking a shoot, waiting six to eight weeks, and spending six figures on production. The process spanned storyboarding, casting, travel, editing, and localised cutdowns, with only a handful of final assets to show for it.
Today, using Amazon Ads Video Generator and AWS Nova Reel, that same campaign could start with just a few product images and some listing copy. Within minutes, Nike could generate six high-quality video variants featuring animated motion, captions, logos, and background music, ready to deploy across retail platforms.
For longer-form storytelling, Nova Reel offers scene-by-scene generation. The brand could render up to two minutes of narrative content using AI-generated environments. No travel. No crew. No physical production.
Localisation becomes instant. Production shrinks from weeks to hours. Costs drop by orders of magnitude.
The gain is scale. Dozens of versions for every SKU, every region, every platform, generated on demand.
And that’s just the starting point. Pair it with AI-driven performance analytics that auto-generate new variants based on real-time conversion data, and campaign execution becomes a self-optimizing system. No manual briefing. No bottlenecks.
Now imagine that video creation is just one node in a self-operating funnel: the moment a new product goes live, AI tools pull in listing data, auto-generate tailored video assets, A/B test formats across audiences, and feed performance insights back into the system to trigger the next batch, without a single human touchpoint.
What remains irreplaceable is Nike’s brand point of view and cultural fluency. AI can’t set the strategy. But the layer of execution, once a costly, human-heavy process, now moves faster, cheaper, and with far less friction.
Launching a campaign begins to look more like a software release than a media plan.
What Still Matters for Humans
Agencies built around storytelling, strategic brand thinking, or earned media remain relevant. This shift doesn’t eliminate the need for content. It just resets expectations for cost, speed, and scope.
What AI can’t yet do:
- Build brand memory or emotional connection
- Define creative direction across multiple channels
- Drive earned visibility through ideas people talk about
- Guide platform strategy with nuance and human insight
If you're offering execution, you're now competing with software. If you're offering strategy, you still have room to lead.
For CMOs and Brand Leaders
This is a useful moment to reassess how your brand approaches content creation:
- What parts of your funnel could be automated without risk?
- Are your agencies using the best tools and systems, or defending the old model?
- Can you reallocate spend toward conceptual thinking and cultural relevance, instead of repetitive execution?
Content isn’t going away. But who gets paid to make it is changing.
The Bigger Picture
Amazon powered the transaction. Then it powered the search. Now it’s moving into storytelling.
The launch of its AI video generator isn’t just about saving time, it’s about controlling how brands appear, frame by frame. A tip ahead of Q4, Get AI-Proof. And if you’re still selling production hours, reframe now.
Creative agencies must now answer a hard question: what value do we offer that cannot be replaced?
Because the next generation of content isn’t just outsourced. It’s built into the platform.
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