How to Use an AI Photo Editor for Visual Brand Storytelling - Klaviyo
2026-03-10 23:03 Diff
https://www.klaviyo.com/blog/how-to-use-ai-photo-editor

Creating a single campaign visual used to mean lofty budgets, multiple photoshoots, and weeks of back and forth with designers.

While we all watched AI disrupt other industries, marketing teams continued to struggle with the same creative bottlenecks and resource constraints.

But that’s changing quickly. McKinsey reports that 78% of professionals worldwide are embracing AI adoption, with IT, marketing, and sales leading the charge.

And according to Klaviyo’s 2025 state of B2C marketing report, AI and machine learning tools are the No. 1 priority for marketing tech investments this year.

One area where AI is significantly transforming the marketing process is AI photo editing. 36% of marketers are already using AI for image generation, according to Klaviyo’s recent AI trends report. These tools are changing how marketing teams approach visual content creation, turning what used to be a major bottleneck into something you can knock out in just a few minutes.

Think about having the ability to transform ordinary product shots, lifestyle imagery, and campaign visuals into polished, professional, and on-brand assets in a matter of seconds. With AI photo editing, marketing teams can now execute visual strategies without being slowed down by clunky workflows, endless approval cycles, or the panic-inducing phrase “we needed this yesterday.”

Here are 6 ways AI photo editors are amplifying marketing strategies and taking teams from idea to execution without the friction of third-party tools, asset exports, or waiting on design help.

1. Removing creative bottlenecks and eliminating back and forth

Every marketing creative has been there before: sitting around waiting for design approval cycles that seem to drag on forever. You send a brief to the design team, wait days for the first draft, then spend another week going back and forth with revisions.

The designer may interpret your vision one way, but you could have had something completely different in mind. Suddenly, you’re in the fourth wave of revisions, with a campaign launch date looming ominously ahead of you.

This is proving to be more true than ever, since 57% of creatives have to create 3–5 versions of a project before they can consider it “done,” according to Ziflow’s State of Creative Workflows Report. And a quarter admit their team has to produce 6+ different versions of each creative asset.

In the traditional process, this whole awkward dance between marketing and creative teams is necessary. But it can create massive bottlenecks.

The AI photo editor solution: If you need to make quick fixes to images, you can do it yourself with an AI photo editor, in real time while you’re building out your campaign. This type of instant editing helps you maintain creative control while eliminating the communication gaps that usually slow everything down.

See the changes instantly, iterate on the fly, and move forward without breaking your flow or losing momentum.

2. Supporting faster campaign launches

You know what they say: timing is everything. A single brand photoshoot can potentially take up to 5 hours per session, according to photographers from the studio Lightbulb League. More extensive shoots may require a full day. And that’s assuming everything goes perfectly.

Factor in scheduling conflicts, revision cycles, and last-minute requests, and suddenly the timing of your campaign is in the red.

Missed opportunities add up when creative assets aren’t ready fast enough. Maybe there’s a trending topic that’s perfect for your brand, or a competitor makes a move you want to respond to, or breaking news creates an opening for timely content.

By the time you get through the traditional creative process, the moment has passed. Traditional processes simply can’t accommodate that type of speed.

The AI photo editor solution: Generate campaign-ready assets in under a minute with an AI photo editor. Just grab an existing image from your repository and prompt the AI with what you want to change.

This way of working shrinks timelines and gives creative teams the advantage of speed while staying relevant. Now, you can capitalize on the moments when your audience is most engaged, maintaining cultural relevance to build more authentic connections with customers.

3. Reducing creative costs

Professional product photography requires professional amounts of money per session. We’re talking hundreds or thousands of dollars: according to the studio Vision Balm, a typical product shoot costs up to $2,000, and commercial shoots cost even more.

Prices may be even higher depending on a photographer’s experience and location. That’s a good chunk of budget, gone.

And if you need to create multiple variations or test different concepts, those costs multiply. Want seasonal variations? That’s another photoshoot or additional custom edits. Different lifestyle contexts? More studio time and talent. Testing multiple aesthetic approaches? Now you haven’t just used up your budget, you’re going over it.

These budgetary constraints can force compromises that stifle your creative potential and limit the effectiveness of your campaign.

The AI photo editor solution: Transform existing product shots into multiple campaign-ready variations, from studio settings to beach environments, without reshoots. With an AI photo editor, you can take one solid product shot and create dozens of different scenarios without spending another dime.

This reduces costs while making assets more versatile. You can reinvest the money you save on production into distribution, so that you reach more people with better-targeted campaigns.

4. Freeing up internal resources for strategic storytelling

Marketing teams are full of strategic thinkers, creative problem-solvers, and customer experts who want to focus on connecting with audiences and driving business impact. But many organizations find themselves spending way too much time on tactical busy work that doesn’t tap into a team’s real strengths.

Repetitive tasks like color corrections, background swaps, resizing assets for different channels, and other routine tasks can take up hours of a marketer’s time every week if they’re doing it themselves.

And if you’re waiting on a photographer, Aftershoot’s 2024 Photography Industry Trends Report shows that the majority (31%) take 2–4 weeks to deliver final edits of an image. That’s time you could (and should) spend on brand strategy and campaign development.

When your skilled marketers are stuck making incremental adjustments to product shots, it’s a resource allocation issue.

The AI photo editor solution: With AI, you can cut down on the tedious work and ramp up strategic thinking. 44% of marketers we surveyed in our AI trends report strongly agree that AI does the heavy lifting for them so they have more time to focus on more valuable work.

With an AI photo editor, for example, you can automate routine visual tasks and make small photo edits, freeing up time for high-level strategy, audience insights, and creative storytelling. The shift from tactical to strategic work improves efficiency, letting your human talent do what they do best: create assets that make your brand stand out.

5. Preserving brand consistency

Brand consistency is one of those areas that seems simple in theory. In reality, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain it across various campaigns, channels, and teams.

Maybe the background color for a product shot doesn’t quite match, or a lifestyle photo isn’t aligned with your brand’s aesthetic guidelines. Before you know it, your brand identity starts to drift. This kind of dilution happens gradually, but the overall effect can negatively impact the professional image you’ve worked hard to build.

And brand consistency is important for growth. According to Marq’s State of Brand Consistency Report, 32% of professionals across various industries say consistent branding has increased their brand’s revenue by 20% or more.

Traditional solutions involve extensive brand guidelines, regular training sessions, and constant oversight, all of which unfortunately involve significant time and resources.

The AI photo editor solution: With an AI photo editor, you can instantly match background colors, product colors, and visual elements to brand palettes and seasonal campaigns. This way, you maintain your brand identity as you scale, without manual color correction or designer intervention.

6. Enabling experimentation and testing to improve creative performance

Innovation requires experimentation, but experimentation can be risky—both financially and creatively. Testing bold new creative concepts may not always be possible. Because of this, teams have to make an educated guess on which assets will land with their target audience.

Instead of guessing, you may want to test:

  • If bright, energetic backgrounds perform better than a minimalistic vibe
  • Whether product shots with lifestyle context outperform clean, isolated product images
  • Which environmental backgrounds (i.e., outdoor settings vs. indoor studios) align better with your story

Historically, these experiments required significant upfront investment, with no guarantee they’d pay off. Teams stuck with what they knew worked rather than pushing boundaries, winding up with safe, predictable assets that performed adequately, but rarely broke through the noise or created memorable brand moments.

The AI photo editor solution: An AI photo editor removes the barriers to creative testing by giving you image variants to work with, fast. Instead of paying for multiple expensive photoshoots to create test assets, you can generate the variations you need to run meaningful A/B tests in your campaigns.

You’ll have the creative options to discover which backgrounds drive more clicks and which styles resonate with your audience—without the traditional time and budget restraints that used to make this kind of experimentation impractical.

The future of marketing creativity is here with Klaviyo Remix

The thing about AI tools in marketing is that they’re not here to replace the human touch. They’re here to help and maximize creativity in ways we haven’t seen before.

Klaviyo Remix, an AI image editor, handles the technical, time-consuming, and resource-intensive aspects of the creative process so you can focus on creating.

With AI capabilities integrated directly into Klaviyo’s email editor, you can:

  • Edit images without ever leaving the platform.
  • Type in the updates you want to make using plain language.
  • Test ideas faster than ever by just prompting again and getting a new image in seconds.

Soon, you’ll be able to use Remix across SMS, RCS, WhatsApp, mobile push, and more channels, bringing AI creativity into every part of your marketing strategy.

Save time and transform your marketing with K:AI (Klaviyo AI).

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