India’s ₹52,992 crore digital advertising market is undergoing a seismic shift as AI video production tools slash costs by 80% and production time by 90%. From Google Veo 3’s recent India launch to Midjourney’s cinematic capabilities, we’re witnessing the democratization of Hollywood-level content creation. The question isn’t whether AI will transform Indian advertising – it already has. The real question is: are you riding the wave or watching from the shore?
Remember when creating a 30-second commercial required a film crew, two weeks of production, and a budget that could fund a small wedding? Yeah, those days are becoming as obsolete as dial-up internet.
India’s digital advertising market is projected to reach ₹52,992 crore in 2025, with AI-related searches surging 2.6x year over year to 654 million+. But here’s the kicker: companies like Intelliflicks Studios in Chandigarh are producing entire feature-length films using almost exclusively generative AI tools, and if they can do that, imagine what’s happening in the advertising space.
Spoiler alert: It’s wild.
Why Every Creative Director is Suddenly Googling “How to Use AI Video Tools”
Let’s address the elephant in the room: AI isn’t here to replace creative directors – it’s here to make them dangerously efficient. Think Iron Man’s suit, not Terminator’s uprising.
The Real Problem AI is Solving (Beyond the Hype)
Problem #1: The Budget Bottleneck
Traditional video production costs are insane. A professionally shot ad can easily cost ₹5-15 lakhs, sometimes more. For startups and small businesses, that’s not a marketing budget – that’s a down payment on a house.
The AI Solution:
Tools like Midjourney and Runway can produce polished, visually compelling ads in a weekend at a fraction of the cost of traditional production. At Buffalo Soldiers, we’ve leveraged Google Veo 3, Midjourney, and Runway to create broadcast-quality commercials that would traditionally cost ₹8-10 lakhs for under ₹2 lakhs – including creative strategy.
Problem #2: The Speed Demon
Client wants revisions? Traditional production means rebooking locations, crews, and actors. AI-powered workflows? You’re editing prompts, not schedules.
Problem #3: The “What If” Paralysis
“What if we tried this in a different style?” “What if the character wore blue instead of red?” These questions used to cost thousands in reshoots. Now they cost you 15 minutes and a few credits.
The AI Arsenal: Tools That Are Actually Changing the Game in India
Google Veo 3: The New Kid Everyone’s Talking About
Google Veo 3 launched in India in July 2025, and it’s not just another text-to-video tool. It’s a game-changer. Why? Native audio capabilities that generate synchronized dialogue, background noise, and music automatically.
What This Means for You:
Instead of separately producing video, recording voiceovers, adding music, and mixing audio, Veo 3 does it all in one shot. It’s like having a mini production studio that understands “a busy Mumbai street during monsoon season” and delivers not just the visuals but the sounds of honking rickshaws and rainfall.
Buffalo Soldiers’ Take: We’ve used Veo 3 for creating location-specific ads where traditional shooting would be logistically nightmarish – think Himalayan backdrops or underwater scenes. The 8-second clips at 720p might sound limiting, but string them together with strategic editing, and you’ve got content that costs 1/10th of traditional production.
SEO Gold: “How to use Google Veo 3 India” is a rising search term with minimal competition. If you’re creating content around this, you’re early to the party.
Midjourney V1: Where Dreamlike Meets Commercial
Midjourney launched its first AI video generation model, V1 in June 2025, starting at $10/month, and it’s got that distinctive “otherworldly” aesthetic that makes scrollers stop mid-scroll.
Real Talk: Midjourney isn’t trying to be hyperrealistic – it’s creating visual poetry. While many companies focus on commercial settings, Midjourney aims for real-time open-world simulations.
Best Use Case: Fashion brands, luxury products, surreal storytelling. If your brief includes words like “ethereal,” “dreamlike,” or “avant-garde,” Midjourney is your tool.
At Buffalo Soldiers, we’ve combined Midjourney-generated images with Runway’s animation capabilities to create fashion campaign videos that look like they belong in a Vogue editorial. Cost? Less than a standard product photoshoot.
Runway Gen-4: The Swiss Army Knife
Runway offers mixed inputs – text, image, and video – with real-time previews and timeline control. It’s the tool that bridges the gap between AI generation and traditional editing workflows.
Why Creative Teams Love It:
- Image-to-video capabilities that maintain consistency
- Style transfer that can match your brand guidelines
- The ability to extend clips and control camera movement
Pro Tip: Start with Midjourney for still imagery, then animate with Runway for movement that feels intentional, not random.
SUNO: Because Ads Need Killer Soundtracks
SUNO AI enables anyone to compose music regardless of musical ability, producing professional-grade audio quality. From jingles to background scores, it’s democratizing music production.
The Reality Check:
SUNO struggles with lyrics that can feel artificial, but its musical foundation is strong enough that tracks could be officially released with human-written lyrics. The trick? Use SUNO for instrumentals and background music, not for lyric-heavy content.
Buffalo Soldiers’ Workflow: We generate multiple SUNO variations, select the best one, then refine with Eleven Labs voiceovers for a polished final product.
Eleven Labs: The Voice That Sounds Human (Because It Almost Is)
Eleven Labs creates human-sounding voices from text in multiple languages and accents, and it’s scary good. We’ve used it for:
- Hindi, Tamil, and English voiceovers without hiring multiple voice artists
- Creating consistent brand voices across campaigns
- Rapid prototyping of scripts before investing in professional voice talent
Honest Assessment: For high-stakes brand films, we still recommend professional voice artists. For social media content, internal videos, and testing concepts? Eleven Labs is a no-brainer.
Freepik AI Suite: The Underrated MVP
Freepik’s AI Video Generator includes multiple models – Google Veo 3, Kling, Runway, and more – all accessible through one platform. It’s like having a Swiss Army knife of AI video tools.
Why It’s Slept On:
Most people know Freepik for stock assets, but their AI suite is powerful for product visualization, mockup creation, and quick social media content. The ability to maintain “custom styles” across generations means brand consistency without the headache.
The Keywords Nobody’s Targeting (But Should Be)
Based on search trends and competition analysis, here are the low-hanging SEO opportunities in the Indian market:
High-Volume, Low-Competition Winners:
- “AI video production cost India” – High commercial intent, minimal competition
- “How to create AI ads in India” – Tutorial intent, growing search volume
- “Google Veo 3 vs Runway comparison” – Zero dedicated content exists
- “AI advertising agency India” – B2B goldmine with rising searches
- “Generative AI entertainment India” – Broad term, early adoption phase
- “AI film production tools India” – Following Intelliflicks buzz
- “Best AI tools for advertising 2025 India” – Evergreen with year specificity
- “SUNO AI music for Indian ads” – Niche but growing
- “Eleven Labs Hindi voiceover” – Language-specific opportunity
- “AI commercial production India” – Direct commercial intent
The Strategy: Create in-depth, genuinely helpful content around these terms. The AI content space is cluttered with surface-level listicles. Go deep. Show workflows. Share actual costs. Be the resource you wish existed when you started.
Real Talk: What AI Can’t (Yet) Do
Let’s pump the brakes on the hype train for a second. AI is powerful, but it’s not magic, and pretending otherwise does everyone a disservice.
The Limitations You Need to Know:
Consistency is Hard
The biggest challenge teams face is consistency, as generative AI is inherently probabilistic – its responses to the same prompt will differ each time. That leading lady’s face might change from shot to shot. Your brand’s signature color might shift subtly.
Solution: Generate multiple options, curate ruthlessly, and use tools that support reference images and style consistency (Freepik’s Custom Styles feature is clutch for this).
The Uncanny Valley
Especially with character-driven content, there’s still something slightly “off” that viewers can detect. It’s improving rapidly, but we’re not quite at “indistinguishable from reality” yet.
Creative Direction Still Requires Humans
Decisions about how actors should deliver lines can be hard to articulate in text prompts. The best AI-powered content still has human creative directors steering the ship.
The Buffalo Soldiers Blueprint: How We’re Actually Using This Stuff
Since diving deep into AI video production six months ago, here’s what we’ve learned from dozens of campaigns across Google Veo 3, Midjourney, Runway, SUNO, and Eleven Labs:
Phase 1: Concept & Storyboarding
Tools: Midjourney for key frames, ChatGPT for script refinement
We generate 20-30 visual concepts in Midjourney, select the strongest 5-6, and build the narrative around those. This flips the traditional storyboard process – instead of drawing what we imagine, we’re choosing from what AI shows us is possible.
Time Saved: 3-5 days down to 4-6 hours
Phase 2: Motion & Animation
Tools: Runway for image-to-video, Veo 3 for scene generation
The trick is understanding each tool’s strengths. Runway excels at deliberate camera movements. Veo 3 shines with complex scenes that need audio. We don’t pick one tool – we choreograph them.
Phase 3: Audio Layering
Tools: SUNO for background music, Eleven Labs for voiceovers
We’ve developed a library of SUNO instrumentals that match common brand vibes (energetic, contemplative, celebratory). For voiceovers, we use Eleven Labs for initial edits, then decide if professional voice talent is worth the investment.
Cost Comparison: Traditional scoring and voice recording: ₹80,000-₹1,50,000. AI-assisted: ₹15,000-₹30,000.
Phase 4: Polish & Delivery
Even with AI doing heavy lifting, human editing is non-negotiable. Color grading, pacing adjustments, strategic cuts – this is where good content becomes great content.
The Bottom Line: We’re not creating “AI ads” – we’re creating ads, period. The tools happen to be AI-powered. The standards remain human.
The Ethical Elephant: Copyright, Jobs, and Deepfakes
We can’t talk about AI in entertainment without addressing the concerns that keep creative professionals up at night.
Copyright: The Messy Reality
Companies like SUNO and Udio face lawsuits from the RIAA for allegedly training on copyrighted material, while Eleven Labs has proactively secured licensing deals with Kobalt Music Group and Merlin Network.
What This Means: Work with tools that prioritize licensed training data. Document your creative process. When in doubt, consult a lawyer who specializes in digital content.
Jobs: Replaced or Redefined?
Industry leaders argue that AI won’t replace human creativity but will help filmmakers create films at lower costs and in less time, opening more opportunities rather than eliminating jobs.
The Nuance: Junior editing positions? Probably affected. But creative directors, strategists, and craftspeople who learn to leverage AI? They’re becoming more valuable, not less.
Deepfakes and Misinformation
Google has added visible watermarks to Veo 3-generated content to combat misuse. It’s a start, but the industry needs stronger standards.
Our Stance at Buffalo Soldiers: We clearly disclose AI-generated content in our portfolios and recommend clients do the same. Transparency builds trust, and deception destroys it.
Your Action Plan: Getting Started Without Getting Overwhelmed
Alright, you’re convinced AI is the future of advertising. Now what?
For Brand Managers & Marketing Heads:
Start Small: Pick one campaign – maybe social media content – and test AI tools alongside traditional production. Compare results, costs, and turnaround times.
Set Clear Goals: Are you optimizing for speed, cost, or creative exploration? Different tools excel at different things.
Find the Right Partner: Whether it’s an agency like Buffalo Soldiers or building in-house capabilities, you need people who understand both creative strategy and AI workflows.
For Creative Professionals:
Embrace the Learning Curve: Spend 30 minutes daily playing with these tools. Prompt engineering is a skill. Get good at it.
Redefine Your Value: You’re no longer just a designer or video editor – you’re a creative technologist who can conceptualize, produce, and iterate at unprecedented speeds.
Build Your Portfolio: Create spec work using AI tools. Show brands what’s possible.
For Startups & Small Businesses:
Stop Waiting: The barrier to entry for high-quality video content has never been lower. That brand video you’ve been postponing because of budget constraints? Make it this month.
Experiment Aggressively: Unlike traditional production, where mistakes are expensive, AI lets you fail fast and cheap. Try weird ideas. Some will bomb. Some will break through.
The 2025 Prediction: What’s Coming Next
By 2025, AI video tools will move toward interactive ads, personalized films, and integration with VR/AR and gaming. We’re not just talking about better video generation – we’re talking about fundamentally different experiences.
What Buffalo Soldiers is Watching:
- Personalization at scale: AI-generated ads that adapt to individual viewers
- Real-time content: Campaigns that update based on current events or data
- Interactive storytelling: Ads where viewers can influence the narrative
The agencies that figure out how to deliver on these capabilities will eat everyone else’s lunch.
And Therefore…
Here’s the thing about technological revolutions: the winners aren’t always the ones who adopt first. They’re the ones who adopt effectively.
We’ve spent the last six months in the trenches – testing every major AI video tool, failing spectacularly, succeeding surprisingly, and developing workflows that actually work in high-pressure client environments.
The future of Indian advertising isn’t purely AI or purely traditional – it’s the intelligent integration of both. It’s knowing when Midjourney’s aesthetic serves your brand and when it doesn’t. It’s understanding that Google Veo 3 can nail your background audio, but your brand’s emotional message might still need a human voice.
AI isn’t replacing storytelling. It’s democratizing the tools to tell better stories, faster and cheaper than ever before. And if you’re ready to explore what that means for your brand, we should talk.
Whether you’re curious about how AI video production in India could transform your marketing budget, want to explore what’s possible with tools like Google Veo 3 and Runway, or just need to create killer content without the traditional headaches – Buffalo Soldiers has been there, done that, and learned what actually works.
No generic pitches. No snake oil. Just honest conversations about how these tools can serve your specific goals.
Ready to Bring Your Next Ad Idea to Life with AI?
From concept to screen, Buffalo Soldiers helps you create stunning AI-powered video ads — faster, smarter, and beautifully on-brand.
