AI tools are lowering the cost of short-form product ads

AI is making product ads cheaper to produce at the same time TikTok Shop is becoming a larger sales channel. For small sellers and creators, the shift lowers the cost of testing short videos that once required a person on camera, lighting, filming time and multiple takes.

TikTok Shop, TikTok’s in-app ecommerce platform, handled $64.3 billion in global merchandise sales in 2025, nearly twice the prior year’s level, according to TechNode Global. The U.S. accounted for $15.1 billion of that total, according to the same report.

Gross merchandise value, or GMV, means the total value of goods sold through a marketplace before items such as returns, discounts or platform fees are taken out. For investors watching social commerce, the figure matters because it shows how much shopping activity is moving inside entertainment apps rather than traditional online stores.

The format behind much of that activity is straightforward: short, face-to-camera product videos where someone presents an item and explains the appeal. Decrypt described an AI workflow that can create a virtual model, dialogue and a 10-second video using GPT Image 2, ChatGPT and Google Flow’s Gemini Omni for about a dollar of computing cost or less.

How the AI ad workflow works

The process starts with a clean product image. Decrypt said the product photo should be cropped so the item is isolated, without a model, messy background or watermark, because the AI image system treats that picture as the main reference for the product.

For clothing and accessories, the next step is placing the product on a generated person. Decrypt said users can upload the cropped image into ChatGPT and use GPT Image 2 to create a vertical 9:16 image, such as a smartphone-style shot of a model wearing the item in a bright apartment. The prompt should tell the system to preserve the product’s shape, color, proportions, texture, stitching and fit.

Decrypt said GPT Image 2 performed better than Google’s Nano Banana 2 in its own comparison for photorealism and product fidelity. Product fidelity means how accurately the generated image keeps the original item’s details instead of changing its design.

After the image and script are prepared, Google Flow’s Gemini Omni can be used to generate the short video, according to Decrypt. CapCut then handles finishing work such as trimming the clip and adding subtitles.

Why creators are paying attention

TikTok Shop allows sellers to open a store with zero followers, according to Decrypt. That makes the sales channel accessible to people who do not already have a large audience, though reach still depends on whether a video gets shown to viewers and converts them into buyers.

YouTube is also lowering the bar for shopping-focused creators. Decrypt said YouTube’s Shopping affiliate program now opens at 500 subscribers. An affiliate program lets creators earn money when viewers buy products through eligible links or tagged items.

The broader takeaway for retail investors is that AI tools are reducing the production cost of social-commerce content. That could affect how small merchants test ads, how creator platforms compete for shopping activity and how often consumers encounter AI-generated product pitches in their feeds.

This story draws on original reporting from Decrypt.