How do you brief an AI video agency like you'd brief a director?

The same way, mostly — a good brief is a good brief regardless of what's on the other end of it. But there are a couple of habits worth adjusting.

What to include

• The objective — what the video needs to do, not just what it should look like.
• Brand guidelines and any reference footage or stills that show the tone you're after.
• Platform specs and format list up front, so variants are planned into the first pass, not bolted on after.
• Hard constraints — anything that's non-negotiable (a tagline, a color, a product shot that must appear).

What to leave open

Over-specifying the visual details — exact camera angles, precise timing beats — tends to slow a generation down rather than speed it up. It's the same way over-directing a skilled DP on a shoot would backfire. Describe the feeling and the constraints, then let the production side propose the specific execution and react to what comes back.

The one real difference

Because there's no shoot day locking the concept in place, revision rounds are cheap. That means it's fine — even useful — to submit a brief that's 80% certain and refine through the first round of generations, rather than waiting until the brief is airtight before sending it. Iteration is the point.