AI Image & Video Tools for Marketers

A curated list of artificial intelligence tools that can help marketers create

Marketers Guide to AI Video & Image Creation Tools

These platforms make foundational models more usable by packaging them into accessible, marketer-friendly products. Think of them as the “apps” built on top of the infrastructure layer.

Also make sure to learn about the foundation AI models these tools are built on.

AI Image & Video Tools Marketers Should Know

Image Generation Tools

MidJourney
One of the most popular AI art platforms, MidJourney runs through Discord and is known for its striking, stylized outputs. It’s fantastic for brainstorming visuals, mood boards, and social media assets. The downside: consistency is hard, and outputs can lean too “artsy” for some brands.

  • Pros: Stunning visuals, trend-setting style, strong community

  • Cons: Limited control, Discord-only workflow, not ideal for exact brand assets

Leonardo AI
Leonardo AI is built for creators and marketers, offering fine control over styles, layers, and reusable assets. It’s stronger for brand consistency than MidJourney but has a steeper learning curve.

  • Pros: Customizable workflows, asset reusability, higher control

  • Cons: More complex interface, requires more effort than one-click tools

Adobe Firefly
Firefly is Adobe’s integrated AI toolset across Photoshop, Illustrator, and Express. It’s best for marketers already in the Adobe ecosystem, ensuring direct integration with existing workflows. However, it’s more conservative creatively compared to MidJourney or Stable Diffusion.

  • Pros: Seamless Adobe integration, commercial-safe outputs, polished tools

  • Cons: Subscription costs, less “wild” creativity

Canva AI (Magic Media)
Canva has layered AI into its design platform, making it easy for marketers to generate images, edit them, and drop them directly into campaigns. Outputs are beginner-friendly but not as high-quality or unique as MidJourney or Leonardo.

  • Pros: Easy to use, all-in-one design + AI, perfect for quick content

  • Cons: More generic results, not best for high-end creative assets

Video Generation Tools

Runway
Runway pioneered practical AI video with Gen-2 and now newer iterations. It’s great for marketers who need quick video concepts, explainers, or ad snippets. Outputs, while accessible, still often look “AI-made.”

  • Pros: User-friendly, strong for rapid prototyping, multimodal input

  • Cons: Short duration, quality not cinematic-ready

Pika Labs
Focused on short, social-style video creation, Pika makes it easy to produce TikTok or Instagram-style videos with effects and motion. Great for experimenting with quick-turn content.

  • Pros: Fun, accessible, ideal for social campaigns

  • Cons: Limited realism, not designed for polished brand videos

Synthesia
Synthesia specializes in AI avatars and explainer-style videos. It’s strong for training, corporate comms, and localization, but outputs feel “stock-like.”

  • Pros: Great for localization, avatars save production costs

  • Cons: Avatars can feel artificial, not great for emotional storytelling

Lumen5
Lumen5 converts text, articles, or scripts into video with templates and stock-style assets. It’s best for content marketing at scale but lacks originality.

  • Pros: Fast content repurposing, scalable

  • Cons: Template-driven, lacks uniqueness

Kaiber
Kaiber allows you to animate still images and create stylized short clips. It’s more experimental, good for music videos, social visuals, and abstract campaigns.

  • Pros: Creative, stylized, unique animations

  • Cons: Niche use cases, outputs can be unpredictable

Stable Diffusion by Stability AI

Powerhouse with a Learning Curve

Stable Diffusion is one of the most important image generation models on the market—and unlike many of its competitors, it’s open source. That means marketers and developers can take it, customize it, and build entirely new tools on top of it. From stock photo replacements to original ad concepts, Stable Diffusion is at the heart of much of today’s AI design ecosystem.

The big advantage is flexibility. You can train it on your own brand assets, fine-tune styles, and control nearly every aspect of the creative process. This makes it ideal if you want images that feel unique, proprietary, and aligned with brand identity. It’s also cost-effective compared to closed systems, since there are fewer platform lock-ins.

But that flexibility comes with effort. Stable Diffusion isn’t plug-and-play—you often need technical skills, third-party tools, or managed services to get results that rival MidJourney or DALL·E. Out of the box, outputs can feel rough or inconsistent, and it may take time to master prompt engineering, fine-tuning, or leveraging community add-ons like ControlNet, LoRAs, or custom model checkpoints.

When Stable Diffusion Shines

  • Brand customization: Train the model on your products, team photos, or brand visuals.

  • Creative control: Apply specific styles, layers, or compositions with advanced plugins.

  • Cost efficiency: Run it locally or through open platforms without paying per-image fees.

Where It Falls Short

  • Steeper learning curve: Requires setup, plugins, or hosted services to use effectively.

  • Inconsistent outputs: Without tuning, results can vary widely in quality.

  • Time-intensive: Not always the fastest option for quick, ready-to-use assets.

For many marketers, Stable Diffusion is less about convenience and more about ownership and control. If your brand needs truly custom visuals—and you’re willing to put in the work (or hire a partner)—it can be the most powerful creative engine available.

Tools Powered by Stable Diffusion

Because Stable Diffusion is open source, a whole ecosystem of platforms has sprung up to make it more approachable. These tools package the raw model into something usable without requiring you to install or train it yourself.

DreamStudio (Stability AI)
The official platform from Stability AI, DreamStudio is the “clean” interface for generating images directly with Stable Diffusion. It’s beginner-friendly but offers fewer customization options than some community tools.

  • Pros: Easy to start, official support, credits-based pricing

  • Cons: Less control than advanced setups

Automatic1111 (Web UI)
A popular open-source web interface you can install locally. It’s incredibly powerful, offering advanced features like ControlNet, LoRAs, and endless customization. But it requires technical setup.

  • Pros: Maximum control, endless community extensions, free to run locally

  • Cons: Steep learning curve, requires strong hardware and setup

ComfyUI
A node-based interface for Stable Diffusion that gives users visual workflows for chaining effects, styles, and conditions together. Great for advanced experimentation.

  • Pros: Flexible, visual workflow design, extremely powerful

  • Cons: Overwhelming for beginners, technical learning curve

Leonardo AI
A polished SaaS platform built on Stable Diffusion, Leonardo focuses on creative asset generation for marketers, game designers, and brands. It makes SD much more user-friendly with templates and asset libraries.

  • Pros: High usability, asset reusability, brand-friendly

  • Cons: Paid service, less raw control than local installs

Playground AI
An easy-to-use web app that lets you generate and edit images with Stable Diffusion (and other models). It’s more approachable for everyday marketers.

  • Pros: Free tier, simple interface, quick experimentation

  • Cons: Less advanced than pro-grade tools, capped usage

Clipdrop (by Stability AI)
An app ecosystem powered by Stable Diffusion with features like background removal, image upscaling, and text-to-image generation. Great for practical, bite-sized tasks.

  • Pros: Focused utilities, mobile-friendly, simple to use

  • Cons: More toolset than full creative platform

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