Video automation is the use of software and AI to automatically create and edit videos based on templates. It replaces manual tasks like inserting text, images, or data, making it easier to generate many videos at once. This approach is often used for marketing, personalized content, social media, product videos and anywhere speed and scale matter. It helps businesses save time, reduce repetitive work, and produce consistent content faster.

Faster production and time savings - Video automation removes repetitive tasks like editing, versioning, and rendering. This helps teams produce videos quickly, meet tight deadlines, and stay responsive to market changes.
?
?Scalability across channels and audiences - Automation makes it possible to create hundreds or thousands of videos from a single template. Whether for different products, languages, or audiences, it ensures consistent output at scale.
?
?Lower production costs - By reducing manual work, automation cuts production expenses. Teams can produce more videos without needing large in-house teams or external agencies.
?
?More time for creative work - Automated tools handle the repetitive parts, so creators can focus on storytelling, visuals, and strategy, where human input matters most.
?
?Easy integration with data sources - Video automation tools connect with spreadsheets, CRMs, APIs, and e-commerce platforms. This allows dynamic content like names, prices, or locations to update automatically.
?
?Better-performing campaigns - Personalized and relevant videos tend to perform better. Automation supports campaign testing, localized messaging, and fast turnaround, leading to higher engagement.

Video automation is useful for anyone who creates videos at scale or on a regular basis. It’s especially valuable for marketers, educators, businesses of all sizes, and teams that work with repetitive or structured content. Instead of manually editing each video, users can set up a template and automatically generate dozens or thousands of videos with minimal effort.

Many types of videos can be automated, especially those that follow a repeatable structure. These include product videos, personalized sales or onboarding messages, real estate listings, social media variations, recruitment videos, localized content, and even performance reports. As long as you have a template and structured data (like names, prices, or locations), automation tools like Plainly can generate as many versions as needed without manual editing. It works directly with After Effects templates, making it easy to plug in data and create thousands of dynamic videos at scale.

An automated video editing tool is not quite the same as a video automation tool, although some people use these terms interchangeably. Check out our resource on automated video editing to learn more.

Yes, Plainly is fully compatible with After Effects and is built on an infrastructure that leverages After Effects. You create video templates in After Effects, then upload them to Plainly for easy video versioning and personalization. We also have an After Effects plugin that can upload your template directly to Plainly.

No, there’s no limit to the number of videos you can create. However, your plan includes a set number of rendering minutes, which determines how much video content you can render.

Plainly uses a cloud-based After Effects infrastructure to render your videos. Depending on your plan, multiple videos can be rendered simultaneously for faster processing.