The visual effects have always been a differentiator in campaigns and audiovisual productions. But today, artificial intelligence inaugurates a new phase: Faster, accessible, and quality VFX.

From simple corrections to cinematic effects, including digital rejuvenation and automatic lip-sync, AI VFX has established itself as a strategic and creative tool. In this article, we explore what is already possible to do, which tools are driving this transformation, and a real Hollywood case that shows how far we can go.

8 current possibilities of using AI VFX

Today, brands, studios, and independent creators are already exploring these solutions. Here are 8 practical applications that demonstrate the use of AI in visual effects:

1. Element replacement and correction

Removing unwanted elements has always been one of the steps in post-production. Now, with AI, it's possible to erase microphones, drones, cables, and even entire costumes in seconds. 

In addition to cleaning, smart replacement also comes into play: changing a brand on a billboard or updating a product layout in an ad campaign without redoing the entire filming. This opens room for last-minute adjustments without compromising the schedule and costs as much.

2. Rotoscoping and intelligent cutting

Separating the actor from the background is a meticulous process, and platforms like Runway use AI to detect complex edges with surprising precision, such as in the case of hair, transparent fabrics, and smoke. 

This frees the creator to focus on directing the scene and allows for bolder montages or swapped backgrounds in real time.

3. Creation of digital scenarios and environments

Creating digital worlds usually requires advanced 3D or filming in studios with chroma key. Now, it's already possible to create a text prompt to generate hyper-realistic forests or offices. 

This facilitates access to cinematic settings, as a brand can create a campaign without leaving the studio. More and more e-commerce companies are using this technique to present products in different settings without additional production costs.

4. Consistency of characters and objects

Anyone who has tried to create campaigns with AI featuring the same character in different contexts knows the struggle of maintaining coherence. Tools like Higgsfield have emerged to solve this, ensuring that the character preserves style, features, and expressions across multiple takes. This is essential for visual identities with multiplatform extensions, avoiding the "generic puppet" effect.

5. Stylized visual effects

AI is also useful in aesthetic creation. It's already possible to apply analog film grain, realistic light beam simulations, transformations into painting or 2D animation from real videos. 

This type of resource allows art directors and independent creators to have control over visual styles that were previously common only in studios, making it possible to experiment with atmospheres and languages in record time.

6. Digital aging and de-aging

Digital rejuvenation and aging with AI is already a game changer. Vanity AI, for example, creates effects 300x faster than traditional pipelines. More than just smoothing wrinkles, this process involves understanding the anatomy of aging, ensuring absolute realism. 

7. Automatic lip-sync

Imagine producing a video in Portuguese and, in minutes, having it synced to English, Spanish, or French, with the mouth moving naturally in the new language. This is the power of automatic lip-sync with AI. It allows for simultaneous global releases and culturally adapted campaigns without loss of quality. 

A recent example comes from Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies (MARZ), which applied the technology in a scene from The Bear, translating Chef Carmy's speech from English to French. The result, dubbed LipDub AI, shows how AI can maintain the emotion of the original performance while adapting it to another language with lip sync.

8. Subtle corrections in makeup and wardrobe

Not all VFX is explosive. Often, the more subtle details make the difference: touching up smudged makeup, correcting skin imperfections, aligning hair, or adjusting the fit of clothes in motion. Today, AI delivers incredible results in minutes, ensuring quality standards.

Tools that are changing the game

The AI ecosystem applied to audiovisual content is full of options, but two tools stand out for VFX and post-production: Higgsfield and Runway Aleph. Each one addresses a specific point in the workflow, allowing creators to have creative control without needing huge pipelines.

Higgsfield: ready-to-apply visual effects

Higgsfield works almost like a "menu of instant VFX," offering everything from explosions, fire, and plasma to creative effects like angel wings, light particles, facial morphing, and cinematic transitions.

🔥 In VFX: it facilitates the fast application of complex effects (explosions, disintegration, super speed, levitation), which previously required hours in 3D software and simulation.

🎞️ In post-production: in addition to visual effects, Higgsfield also brings transitions and style filters, speeding up the pace of cuts for social media, trailers, or reels with more visual impact.

In summary, it is a tool with access to high-impact effects, allowing even independent creators or small studios to achieve high visual impact results.

Runway Aleph: complete video manipulation

Runway Aleph goes beyond "applying effects"; it is practically a video editing and manipulation laboratory with AI.

🔥 In VFX: it allows for generating new camera angles, creating scene continuations, swapping entire environments (changing the season, time of day, or even the visual style), and realistically inserting or removing objects, with consistent lighting and shadows.

🎞️ In post-production, Aleph stands out with features like:

• Relighting: changing the lighting of an entire scene (transforming noon into golden hour, correcting exposure, creating dramatic atmospheres).

• Intelligent green screen: cutting out people and objects while preserving fine details like hair strands or transparent fabrics.

• Appearance alteration: changing the age or characteristics of characters without the need for physical makeup.

• Style transfer: applying visual aesthetics (e.g., transforming the video into noir, animation, or giving it a cinematic finish).

• Motion transfer: applying the movement of one footage to another image, generating alternative takes without re-filming.

 Aleph is a creative hub for editing, correction, and video transformation, drastically shortening the distance between idea and execution.

Case Vanity AI: when AI enters Hollywood

Vanity AI, developed by Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies (MARZ), is perhaps the most emblematic case of how AI is transforming VFX. The technology became known for delivering something that has always been a challenge for audiovisual: digital aging and rejuvenation at scale, without compromising realism.

What makes Vanity AI different

While traditional VFX pipelines for aging and de-aging required weeks of manual work and large teams of artists, Vanity AI can achieve the same in minutes. 

And it’s not just about smoothing wrinkles; the technology understands the anatomy of facial aging, adjusting bone structure, skin, and expressions in a believable way, something that the audience does not perceive as an effect.

Impressive numbers

• Present in over 100 high-level productions, including Spider-Man: No Way Home, Dexter, The Walking Dead, Stranger Things 4, For All Mankind, and Yellowjackets.

• Up to 300x faster than traditional VFX pipelines.

• More than 100 weeks saved in production schedules.

• More than 10 million dollars in costs reduced for studios.

Why Hollywood trusts Vanity AI

The secret lies not only in the technology but in human know-how. The MARZ team masters how faces age and rejuvenate naturally, ensuring a result indistinguishable from reality. 

This is crucial when working with globally recognized actors, as the audience knows every detail of those faces but cannot perceive the digital intervention.

Impacts beyond cinema

Although Vanity AI was born in Hollywood, the impact goes beyond. Brands are already starting to see de-aging as a narrative resource in advertising, whether to tell stories of legacy and future, or to create visual comparisons (before/after) in emotionally impactful campaigns. And in social media, the technique opens up space for creators to explore narratives of time and memory in short formats.

Conclusion

AI VFX has become part of the creative process. Today, brands, studios, and creators can apply advanced effects without relying on lengthy workflows.

 From the quick effects catalog of Higgsfield to video manipulation in Runway Aleph, through the excellence standard of Vanity AI, AI is redesigning what it means to produce moving images.

What was once exclusive to Hollywood is now in the hands of creators of all sizes. The question is no longer "if" AI will transform VFX, but how each creative will use it to accelerate, innovate, and tell impactful stories.