Recently, Pictory AI, an AI multimodal creation platform with an incredible amount of versatility that, quite frankly, catches my interest.
I mean, it was not too long ago that producing a complete video with subtitles, voiceovers, music, etc, would take multiple steps and an incredible amount of technical effort.
But with Pictory AI, you can potentially create videos with all the bells and whistles they need in just one go. Naturally, I wanted to find out more about this tool for myself!
What Can Pictory AI Help You With?
Based in the United States, Pictory AI is an AI video production tool that was launched by Vishal Chalana, Vikram Chalana, and Abid Ali in 2019.
Developed for both individual creators and enterprise teams, it allows you to create videos from text, images, PPT, and even URL links.
The tool also lets you upload any existing videos you own and edit or repurpose them. It even lets me record myself or my screen to create videos.
This means I can generate videos from scripts, convert blogs into marketing content, turn basic presentations into interactive media, and more.
And if you ever find yourself stuck with just a rough idea for a video, Pictory AI can help refine it into a complete product by generating an entire script in a flash.
After generation, the tool automatically creates an entire visual storyboard, where I can freely customize the footage in all sorts of ways.
This includes adding AI voiceovers, selecting stock footage, placing background music, including subtitles, implementing brand logos, style the scenes, select aspect ratio, etc.
Speaking of which, it was cool to see that Pictory AI offers numerous voiceover avatars in different native languages and a vast range of background music samples to choose from.
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But my favorite part of using this platform is that it also caters to team collaboration. I can freely share projects, create viewable comments, and edit videos with a group.
In this respect, Pictory AI can cater well to marketers, bloggers, YouTubers, educators, and so much more. But how does it perform? Can it actually generate high-quality videos?
I was itching to find out if this platform is just as perfect as it seems on the surface. So, I decided to conduct a few different tests of my own to assess its capabilities.
What Was My Personal Experience Using Pictory AI Like?
I wanted to first test its text-to-video capabilities. So, I used a simple text prompt to create a one-minute explainer script about global warming and climate change.
Within seconds, Pictory AI produced a simple script that summed up the topic in a relatively short and succinct manner before I went on to generate the video.
While I didn’t dig too deeply into other editing aspects like branding, texts, and styles, I did select a voiceover character to help narrate the footage. This was the final output it produced.
The first thing I would point out is that Pictory AI didn’t create the scenes from scratch. It utilized stock footage to match the generated script and produced a complete video with it.
This was fairly disappointing because it meant the content wasn’t original. And while the frame transitions were smooth, the footage didn’t feel as genuine and captivating as it could be.
I will admit the tool’s AI voiceover narrated the scenes relatively well and with no errors. The background music also sounded good enough, so no complaints there.
Overall, Pictory AI created an explainer video that presented the key points in an acceptable format. I’m not thrilled about the video’s composition, but it was not so bad that it can’t be used.
For this, I’ll give it a 7.5/10 for a resounding effort.
In the next test, I wanted to test out Pictory AI’s URL-to-video capabilities. I pasted a link to a recent news release that announced a Minecraft x Adidas sneaker collaboration.
It started with creating a short marketing video script that promoted the sneaker release. The script did well to sum up every key point from the news article, as you can see.
Shortly after, I clicked ‘Generate’ and Pictory AI produced a one-minute-long promotional video that you can watch below.
Unlike the first test, using existing images in this video was a given for the content. But once again, the results were not satisfactory.
For starters, the video didn’t come off like an organic marketing video. If anything, it is more akin to a simple product presentation that is complemented by narration.
Only one or two scenes presented moving sequences, while the rest of the video was made up of still images that flipped from one to the next.
So, while I will commend Pictory AI for capturing the page content thoroughly, I expected to see a little more creativity and animation from the visuals.
However, I will say that I loved the AI voiceover. It sounds incredibly natural and believable, so that was a fantastic thing to hear, especially on a promotional video.
Overall, this video delivered the bare minimum, so it wasn’t a complete disappointment but more so, it just failed to exceed expectations. Because of this, I’d rate this video test a 6/10.
For the final test, I wanted to see what the image-to-video capabilities offered. This option was even less impressive than the previous ones.
I uploaded a few sample images of fashion models to see what sort of narrative/visual direction Pictory AI would take. However, it seems all the tool does is produce a slideshow setup.
As you can see, Pictory AI hasn’t written a script. This was disappointing because I was hoping users could upload the images, and Pictory AI would generate a script automatically.
It still lets you make custom edits like adding voiceovers, titles, etc. But the tool doesn’t do much else except create a basic slideshow. With this option, users will need to handle a lot of work.
For this reason, I’d give Pictory AI a 3.5/10 on this test.
If I were to sum up my takeaway of the platform, it excels at speeding up video creation for basic projects. If I needed to create simplistic visuals, then Pictory AI is great.
It generates quality video scripts from scratch well. Furthermore, it offers a vast database of generic stock footage for me to use to produce matching visuals to the scripts.
I also enjoy its audio compositions, as all the numerous options available for AI voiceover avatars and background music samples surprised me across all the video tests.
However, Pictory AI still falls short of crafting professional-grade AI video content. It can be great if you need to put together a custom presentation, marketing visual, tutorial, etc.
But if you need something more cinematic or directorial, then you would probably be better off using another AI video generation tool.
What Better Alternative Is There? Explore Pollo AI!
Pictory AI can only use AI selected clips to generate videos. It may not be able to deliver true, high-level AI video content. And to do that, I suggest you try Pollo AI .
It is a powerful, all-in-one image and video generation platform that is connected to multiple industry-leading AI models, allowing you to create professional-grade content in any visual style.
Looking to produce mind-blowing videos? Pollo AI provides access to advanced AI video models such as Google Veo 3, Runway, Hailuo AI, Kling AI, PixVerse AI, and Luma AI.
Need to create captivating AI images? You can switch between top-tier AI image models like Flux, Diffusion, Stable, GPT-4o, Recraft, and others.
But it doesn’t just stop there! Pollo AI has dozens of AI tools, templates and effects that allow you to create customized videos and images in a flash. And it also comes with Pollo Canvas, an AI infinite canvas with all our powerful AI video and image generators integrated.
And for developers, Pollo AI offers an API platform, giving you API access to all the top AI video models. And all these come at a lower cost than Fal.ai and Replicate.
The exciting part? Pollo AI offers a free plan, which means you can explore its features and capabilities at no cost whatsoever! Head over there now and try it out for yourself.
Conclusion
With Pictory AI, I find that simplicity is what I can truly experience. I can use it to create basic videos and edit them, or even repurpose existing ones for various use cases like marketing, education, business, etc.
But I wouldn’t rely on it for producing next-level video content like cinematic films or beautiful animations. For that, I would prefer and suggest an advanced platform like Pollo AI!