The short version: businesses getting the most from video in 2026 into 2027 plan one shoot for many assets, lead with short form, use AI to speed up the edit, and make their videos easy for search engines and AI tools to find. The reasons for using video have not changed. It still builds trust faster than text and it still helps people decide. What has changed is how you get the most out of a budget.
This is our single trends post and we will update it each year, so you do not have to dig through old predictions.
The biggest shift we see on client accounts is planning a shoot day around everything you will need, not just one video. A single day can give you a hero video for your website, short vertical cuts for Reels and TikTok, a LinkedIn version, stills and behind-the-scenes clips. Planning it up front costs far less than booking separate shoots. We cover how to plan this in one shoot, multiple assets.
Short vertical video is now the front door for most brands. It is cheap to test and the platforms reward posting often. Longer videos, such as case studies and brand stories, still do the heavy lifting when someone is weighing you up. Most of our clients use both. Our post on short form vs long form goes into what we are seeing.
AI tools now help with transcripts, rough cuts, captions, clean-up and versioning. That frees editing time for the story. On our second explainer for Aimer we used AI in the edit to get the right look and feel. It still needed an editor making the calls. More on that in AI in post production.
People now ask AI assistants which supplier to use, and those tools read your pages. Videos hosted well, with a clear title, a description, a transcript and a page that answers the question, are easier to find and cite. See video hosting and how to optimise videos for SEO and AEO.
Customer stories, staff voices and behind-the-scenes content keep outperforming scripted ads for trust. Case study and testimonial videos are where we see the strongest demand, for example our ongoing case study work with Adaptiv.
When money is tight, the businesses that keep showing up do better when things pick up. The answer is not always a smaller video. It is a clearer brief, fewer locations and more outputs from the same day. Our corporate video cost guide shows what moves the price.
If you want to talk through your project, have a look at our web video production page, then get a quote from Create x Wonder. Tell us what the video needs to do and we will come back with a clear plan and price, plus GST.
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