In 2025, 89% of businesses are using video as a marketing tool as it increases engagement and has a high ROI compared to other initiatives.
Video has been a buzzword in marketing for years, and today brands are using it to carve out devoted followings on social media. Understanding the latest data and trends is so important for an effective video marketing strategy. It’s about knowing what kinds of videos truly stop the scroll, spark engagement and drive results.
But for some industries, this medium can seem out of reach due to compliance concerns. For example, a financial services firm with a team of 140+ writers/editors/content creators who drafted thousands of pieces each year and then manually handled all reviews. This created mass inefficiencies and missed opportunities to capitalize on trending topics.
Vall Herard, an AI and compliance expert, answered our questions about this critical gap and how marketers can optimize video use without creating compliance concerns, avoid compliance concerns and fix inefficiencies that are creating missed opportunities to capitalize on trending topics.
Demand Gen Report (DGR): How do you view the growing role of video in modern B2B marketing strategies? Are there any stats or trends that stand out to you?
Vall Herard: From product explainers and video ads to webinars and podcasts, multimedia is being used more than ever to educate, engage and convert audiences. Video is becoming a more central part of how B2B brands communicate, particularly short-form content, which 83% of B2B marketers now prefer over long-form or live formats. This shift is reflected in where marketing dollars are going, with increasing investment in video production and promotion.
As the demand for videos increases, marketers and compliance teams should be concerned about the potential risks associated with them. Videos can increase exposure and help sell your product, but they can raise the potential for misinterpretation, overpromising, and/or lack of context. Problematically, video content often takes longer for stakeholders and compliance to review and approve, which can slow down production cycles.
At this point, video’s prominence and popularity have moved beyond just a trend—it’s a long-term shift in how we do business.
DGR: Why do you believe short-form video is outperforming other marketing formats in terms of ROI?
Herard: They are agile, attention-grabbing, and ideal for today’s fast-paced content consumption habits, especially when targeting younger generations. They’re easier to produce thanks to more accessible tools, a growing tolerance for medium-quality or lower-production formats, and the ability to repurpose existing content. If you’re already creating long-form assets like webinars or interviews, you can clip out the best moments to share across social media and email, stretching content and budget further.
The impact is clear: marketers report the highest ROI (71%), the highest engagement (66%) and the most leads (60%) from their short-form video efforts. But in regulated industries, content still needs to be carefully reviewed and approved.
DGR: What are the top compliance concerns marketers should be aware of when utilizing video content in B2B campaigns?
Herard: Videos must meet all regulatory requirements. The biggest challenge is that you can’t review a video as easily as you can a blog or an ad—every second must be reviewed to ensure you’re not making false claims, showing misleading visuals, or forgetting required disclosures. Additionally, they likely need to be transcribed so that each word can be reviewed. It’s easy for something to slip through if you don’t have the right process and safeguards for video reviews.
Compliance should be involved at every stage of the video creation process: when the script is developed, when visuals are being designed, and all the way through to final production. This helps avoid costly rework after automation and talent have already been brought in. And to help ease video reviews, all speakers or presenters should be briefed ahead of the recording on what they can and cannot say to help ensure they’re aware of the guardrails.
For repurposed content, marketing may need to build in time for compliance review. Even if the full video had been approved, snippets still require scrutiny since context might have been cut out and different disclosures might be needed.
DGR: Can you share a situation where creative video marketing pushed the boundaries of compliance, and how it was resolved?
Herard: One of the more common issues we see arises during live-recorded interviews or webinars where marketing is focused on getting authentic, engaging dialogue—and compliance wants to make sure what is said is balanced, not promissory.
In one case, a compliance reviewer was present in the studio during a shoot, flagging language in real time and prompting retakes. While this helped to ensure the final product was compliant, it also highlighted the need for better processes—like involving compliance earlier, prepping speakers and using AI tools post-production to streamline final reviews.
DGR: What steps should marketers take to ensure their video content adheres to compliance regulations while remaining impactful?
Herard: Start by embedding compliance into the creative process from day one and using sophisticated AI to help with video transcription and review.
AI-powered tools like SaifrReview can help streamline the review process by accurately transcribing video and audio content, using models trained to recognize industry-specific terms like 401(k). Once transcribed, the AI models review the content to flag potential compliance risks and timestamp their location in the video. This makes it easier for compliance reviewers to focus on sections that might be problematic and helps to reduce turnaround time without compromising quality.
DGR: With AI tools becoming more prevalent in video creation, how can marketers maintain compliance, especially regarding privacy and intellectual property laws?
Herard: It has been shown that 91% of B2B marketers utilize AI tools when creating video content, but these tools must be chosen and used carefully. Marketers should involve compliance in the vetting of tools for in-house video production to minimize security risks and confirm that they don’t draw from copyrighted or unauthorized materials.
When creating content with AI, avoid mimicking voices, faces, or brand assets without proper licenses or approvals. Using AI platforms specifically designed for certain regulated industries can help reduce compliance exposure and help with ethical content development.
DGR: How can AI help marketers create compelling videos without raising compliance flags?
Herard: AI skillfully employed throughout the video creation process can spur creativity, help adhere to regulatory guidelines and reduce the time invested.
First, AI is now being used heavily to assist with creativity—it can act as a tireless teammate, helping to generate ideas and even help write drafts. AI is great at helping to avoid the blank page syndrome.
You can use generative AI to write the script or even to create the video—but they aren’t likely to understand the regulations that apply to your industry. So, you can layer on industry-regulatory-specific AI models acting as a guardrail to help identify and correct possible risks.
Once the video is ready for compliance review, AI tools can transcribe and review it for potentially risky images or words and flag them with a timestamp for reviewers. They can also suggest possible disclosures. The entire review process can be centralized in one tool that enables marketing and compliance to work together.
DGR: With advances in AI, how do you see compliance concerns evolving for video marketing in the next decade?
Herard: Very hard question since AI is evolving at a rapid pace—5 to 10 years seems like a lifetime. Compliance and regulators will be challenged to keep up with the volumes of content that is likely to be created with more and more sophisticated AI being used by marketing teams.
AI is becoming more agentic—autonomously performing tasks, making decisions, and interacting with its environment to achieve specific goals. Compliance will want to be involved in the selection and implementation of agentic systems to understand the data used to train them, how those decisions are being made and where humans will want to be involved and where they should have the final word.
Deepfakes and synthetic media are becoming more sophisticated, and that is concerning. Expect increasing scrutiny around authenticity, consent and attribution.
Staying ahead of both the technology and the regulatory landscape will be critical for any compliance team.
DGR: What advice would you give to B2B marketers looking to stay ahead of potential compliance challenges while maximizing the impact of video marketing?
Herard: Compliance should be brought in early at every stage, not just to review content at the end. Embrace AI—but do it wisely. Partner with compliance to help find the right system(s) for you. Many firms start their AI exploration via vendors so that they can test the benefits of AI quickly and easily pivot to what works. Also, many firms don’t have the data or expertise to create their own AI models/systems.
When done right, video can be both highly effective and fully compliant—it’s just a matter of having the right tools and processes in place.
