Motion's AI tool guide for marketers

What AI tools should marketing teams use?

The best AI tools for marketing teams handle specific workflows; creative production (Butter, Veed), asset organization (Air), consumer research (Reddit Answers), and creative analysis (Motion). Focus on tools that solve your biggest bottlenecks rather than trying to adopt every new platform.

Marketing teams face constant pressure to produce more content, faster, without sacrificing quality. AI tools promise to solve this, but the market is overwhelming. Hundreds of platforms claim to revolutionize your workflow, leaving most marketers paralyzed by choice.

This guide cuts through the noise with curated recommendations from marketers who use these tools daily. 

How to choose AI tools for your marketing team

Ignore that LinkedIn guru’s 200-tool AI stack. Start with a simple framework:

1. Identify your biggest bottleneck — Where does work slow down or quality suffer?
2. Find the tool that solves that specific problem — Not the one with the most features
3. Test with a small project — Validate before committing budget
4. Measure impact — Track time saved or quality improvements
5. Build your stack gradually — Add tools one at a time as needs emerge

The flashiest platforms rarely solve the real problems slowing you down.

Essential AI tools for marketing teams

Motion: AI-powered creative strategy

What it does: Motion's quick, visual reporting software makes it easy to analyze your ad performance on Meta. AI tagging analyzes all your ads and understands the pieces it’s made of, so you can understand the reasons behind ad performance.

How teams use Motion:

• Do we have enough creative diversity? — Audit your account with an AI tool that “sees” your ads like Meta does
• How did our recent test perform? — Compare performance patterns without the need for tedious naming conventions
• Which ad(s) should we make next? — Find winning patterns in your ads and use them to make more winners

Why it's different: Motion’s AI features are built by a team of former creative strategists, and rigorously beta-tested by top brands and agencies. We’re not building AI features, we’re building solutions to real problems our customers face.

Best for: Digital marketing teams struggling to grow through paid social advertising

Butter: Transform ideas into shippable creative

What it does: Butter is a modular creative engine that turns your AI-generated assets and top-performing ads into fresh variants that are fast, editable, and on-brand.

Trusted by Crocs, Urban Outfitters, and MeUndies, Butter fills the gap between idea and finished creative. Find an ad you like and quickly remix it to fit your own brand and products.

Key features:

• Scale creative diversity — Build new ads quickly without starting from scratch
• Test low-fi variants — Create native-style ads with text overlays in minutes
• Stay on-brand — Save your own library of templates and building blocks

How Motion users leverage Butter: When Motion identifies winning creative elements or new opportunities, Butter helps turn those strategic insights into production-ready assets. 

Best for: Teams producing high volumes of creative variations

Remix top picks from Motion into your next winning ad.

Veed: AI-powered video creation

What it does: Veed.io helps advertisers create scroll-stopping videos faster with AI-powered scripts, AI avatars, and seamless editing in one workspace.

Video creation bottlenecks kill momentum. Veed offers a suite of tools to help you ship faster.

Key capabilities:

• Generate compelling scripts — AI assistance for hooks, body copy, and CTAs
• Edit scenes easily — User-friendly editor removes technical friction
• Access extensive visuals — Stock footage and AI-generated content library

Use cases:

• Test video concepts without full production shoots
• Create localized variations for different markets
• Generate educational content quickly

Best for: Teams that need video output but lack in-house production resources

Air: Creative operations

What it does: Air is a visual-first creative workspace that makes every asset instantly discoverable through AI-powered organization and search.

If your team wastes time searching for files or drowning in folders labeled "final_final_v2," Air solves this. The platform uses facial recognition, smart tagging, and automatic transcription to make your entire asset library searchable by what's in it, not just filenames.

Core features:

• Find anyone instantly — Facial recognition identifies people across your workspace
• Search by what you see — Smart tags recognize objects, scenes, colors, and text
• Get video summaries — At-a-glance overviews of video content
• Navigate long videos easily — Auto-generated chapters, timestamps, and descriptions
• Make every word searchable — Automatic transcription of spoken content

Why this matters: When you're building campaigns or iterating on creative, finding the right reference footage or past creative shouldn't take 20 minutes. Air turns your asset library into a searchable, visual database.

Best for: Creative teams with large asset libraries or frequent collaboration needs

Reddit answers

What it does: Reddit is a popular source for unfiltered, critical reviews of companies and products. Reddit Answers uses AI to search across Reddit threads and answer any questions you ask it, with real user sources.

Core capabilities:

• Search Reddit's knowledge base — AI scans billions of Reddit discussions to find relevant conversations
• Get summarized answers — Conversational AI responses synthesized from community insights
• See source discussions — Direct links to the original Reddit threads and comments
• Explore related topics — Suggested follow-up questions to dive deeper
• Access authentic experiences — Real user opinions instead of affiliate-driven reviews

Why marketers love it: Ad copy that mirrors natural language converts better than polished marketing-speak. Reddit Answers helps you discover how your audience actually talks about your product and their problems, giving you authentic language for creative and messaging.

Use cases:

• Research how target audiences discuss pain points and solutions
• Find authentic customer language for ad copy and scripts
• Understand unfiltered product sentiment and comparisons
• Identify emerging trends and common questions in your category
• Discover the real objections and desires prospects have

Best for: Creative strategists, copywriters, and marketers looking for authentic customer voices and unfiltered opinions.

How to build your AI stack without overwhelming your team

Start with one clear need. Don't try to adopt five tools at once. Pick the biggest bottleneck in your workflow and try to solve it.

Test before committing. Many tools offer free trials. Run a real project through the platform before signing annual contracts.

Get team buy-in early. Tools fail when only one person uses them. Involve your team in testing and gather feedback before rolling out widely.

Measure what matters. Track specific metrics tied to your bottleneck. If you're solving a speed problem, measure time saved. If it's quality, track performance improvements.

Build incrementally. Add one tool at a time. Master it. Then evaluate what bottleneck remains and find the next tool to solve that.

What AI can't do (yet)

AI tools excel at acceleration and augmentation. They can't replace human judgment, strategic thinking, or creative vision.

Where humans still win:

• Strategic direction — Deciding what to make and why
• Brand judgment — Maintaining voice and values
• Creative vision — Original concepts that break patterns
• Cultural context — Understanding nuance and appropriateness
• Stakeholder management — Navigating organizational dynamics

The most effective marketing teams use AI to handle repetitive or manual work, freeing humans to focus on high-leverage creative and strategic decisions.

Quick Start Guide: Your First AI Tool

If you're new to AI tools for marketing:

1. Assess your workflow — Where do you spend the most time? Where does work get stuck?
2. Pick one category — Creative production, organization, research, or strategy
3. Test the recommended tool — Use the free trial for a real project
4. Measure the results — Did it actually save time or improve quality?
5. Decide: adopt or move on — Not every tool fits every team

Don't get caught up in building the perfect stack. Start with the imperfect tool that solves your biggest problem today.

Key takeaways: AI tools for marketing teams

• Choose tools that solve specific bottlenecks, not platforms with the most features
• Test with real projects before committing budget
• Focus on augmenting human work, not replacing it
• Build your stack incrementally, one tool at a time
• Measure impact — time saved, quality improved, or goals achieved

The right AI tools amplify your team's capabilities. The wrong ones just add complexity. Choose carefully.