2025 State of Video Wistia Report Breakdown

|watch the corresponding video here|

Running my own video production business means I have to constantly stay on top of the latest data to make sure the work I'm doing for my clients is ahead of the curve.

Now, I’ve been digging into Wistia’s new 2025 State of Video Report, and honestly, it’s making me rethink how I’m going to approach my business and advise my clients moving forward. They analyzed over 100 million videos and surveyed more than 1,300 professionals, and I’m going to share the key takeaways that are now at the center of my strategy.

First, let's look at the production landscape. It's interesting—the report confirms 71% of companies are now producing video in-house! As a small business, I see this as an opportunity to partner with these companies and organizations on a more strategic level, especially since the biggest hurdles for them are still cost and having the right technical skills. Over half of marketing teams are spending more time *creating* videos than *promoting* them. That's a gap I can help fill!

Now, here’s the data I'm going to be bringing to all my client meetings. Overall viewer engagement has hit a four-year low! But it’s not that people are tired of video or have short attention spans; it’s that their standards are way higher.

The secret weapon, according to the data? "How-To" videos. They have the highest engagement rates across the board. For a short how-to videos under a minute long, the engagement is absolutely insane at 82%.

And video placement is a key! If you want clicks, course pages and video galleries are the top spots for where videos need to live. If you want actual engagement—getting people to watch, share, and interact with your business in some way—product pages and thank-you pages are where it’s at.

Now, let's talk about turning those views into leads. The report shows that making videos interactive is a huge win. Implementing a CTA (call to action) in or around your video, like a lead-generation in the description, converts on average at 24%. Pro Tip: for short videos, put the call to action right near the beginning, in the first quarter of the video. The conversion rate can jump to as high as 40% when you do that. It's a small change that makes a huge difference.

So, as a small business, how do we do all this work efficiently? Two letters: A.I. It’s mid-2025, AI is going to, very quickly, become akin to something like a social media profile or a website - if you’re a business NOT using AI in some way, you will be left behind. Just take a second and think about a business that’s even moderately successful that doesn’t have a website or a social media presence…[wait]…Exactly. If you don’t have at least one of those things, your business may as well not exist. This is the state of AI today and the report confirms this. AI use in video has more than doubled in the last year alone, from 18% to 41%. I’ve been using AI to speed up my editing process, which has been HUGE in allowing me turn around and create videos at a faster rate and at a higher quality for my clients. The report highlights that the most popular use cases are for accessibility, like AI captions, voice dubbing, and translations. AI is really a game-changer and if you are not already on the AI train, you need to get on as soon as possible.

Finally, based on this report, the biggest opportunity I'll be exploring with my clients is webinars. They're ranked as the second most impactful video type marketers can create. The real strategy here is repurposing, and nearly 90% of marketers are already doing it. One webinar can be transformed into an entire campaign of smaller content pieces. I will definitely be recommending this to my clients and trying to figure out ways in which they can implement this particular strategy.

So, to wrap up, these are the insights that are now shaping the future of my business (and hopefully yours):

1. Create videos that really matter to your audience and respects their time and do it concisely. “How-To” videos have the highest success rates.

2. Be strategic about where videos are placed.

3. Get on the AI train ASAP, if you’re not already.

4. And I'll be working with my clients to see if we can turn webinars into powerful, long-term content engines.

|read the full report here|

HOWEVER...

This report was released BEFORE Google unveiled their VEO3 video generation model, and I feel like this whole video would have been completely different if Wistia released their report at the end of this year instead of in early Q2.

First off, the barrier to entry is incredibly low. With about a hundred to two hundred dollars or so, give or take, you can generate your own video out of thin air, with just a few sentences, and have it look absolutely convincing and incredible. Nothing’s of the table now.

Videos containing non-descript people, who can be played by anyone, is fair game for VEO3. If you haven’t seen this already, just take a look at this pharmaceutical commercial…yup, that is 100% AI generated.

Videos about products in their early stage of development, is fair game for VEO3. Previously you’d have to hire a 3D design and modeling firm or expert and work with them in multiple stages to create the look of the product you want, and then you’d have that back and forth of the adjustment process when things don’t look just right. All that is gone now. You can have a complete video generated about your product in minutes.

Videos about products that already exist today can be AI generated, just take a look at this 100% AI generated Porsche commercial.

It never ends. It won’t end, in fact it will only get better and become more prominent over time. Who knows what 2026 is going to look like at this rate.

But there is a silver lining. The only thing that can’t be generated though, is reality. Real things that actually happened, that make a real impact, with real people in them. Festivals, keynotes, events, documentaries, actual products and their impact on the customer…These videos can’t be generated if you want the world to know what it was actually like to be there. What people actually said and did. How people actually felt when they held and used your product.

That’s where we come in.

If you’re running a business and wondering how to apply any of these these trends to your own video strategy, or if you’re interested in having us implement any of these strategies for your business, shoot me a message or an email. Let’s figure out how to put this data to work.