If you've asked a language model for reel ideas, you know the pattern. The ideas are reasonable, on topic and correctly formatted, and you would scroll past almost all of them. "A day in the life." "Three tips for." "POV: you finally." Nothing is wrong with them, and nothing makes them stick.
We hit this hard while building AI influencers. Our ideas came from a strong model with detailed instructions, and still the owner's verdict was blunt: sloppy, not original, not well thought through. Five versions of one product ad were, underneath, the same sketch in five different places.
What fixed it wasn't a better prompt. It was changing where ideas come from.
The best new ideas are usually combinations of old ones that worked.
Why the ideas come out generic
A language model writes what is likely: the most typical answer to the question. For facts, that's useful. For creative work, it's the problem, because "typical" is the opposite of what makes someone stop scrolling.
Three things make it worse in practice:
No feedback from reality. The model has no idea which of its ideas would actually perform. Every idea sounds equally confident.
Templates harden. Once you give a model a structure (hook, problem, solution, result), every idea fills the same slots, and the structure starts to show.
Fixing the plan instead of the idea. Our first instinct was to make the ad brief more detailed. That made things worse. The brief prescribed the story ("her hands are full, she talks to the device"), so every idea was a variation of the same scene.
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Watch what experienced creators do. Very few invent formats from nothing. They notice something that worked, often in a completely different niche, and bring it into their own world with a twist: a cooking video's pacing used for a fashion haul, a product reveal borrowed from a tech reviewer, a hook format from a comedian.
That is something language models are genuinely good at, as long as they have the right raw material. They are poor at inventing, and good at recognising what makes something work and recombining it. So we gave them real material to recombine.
How the remix works
For every post an owner asks for, before any idea is written, the system now does this:
Find proven videos. It looks for a handful of real short videos (we use up to six) that did unusually well for this kind of post: creators known for this format or product type, and the videos that beat their own usual numbers. A video with a few thousand views may be luck; we now require at least 100,000 views where enough candidates exist.
Study them shot by shot. Each video is broken down: the hook in the first second, the shots and their timing, the camera moves, the sound, and why it works.
Remix two or three. The idea writer has to build each idea from two or three of the studied videos, by number, and say what it takes from each: the hook from one, the structure from another, the reveal or rhythm from a third. Then it adds one twist that belongs to the character. It is not allowed to copy any single video.
Borrow the editing too. The shot planner takes the cut rhythm, shot sizes and camera moves from the same videos, instead of inventing timing.
Show the sources. The finished post lists the videos it was inspired by, so the person approving it can judge the remix against the originals.
A product ad that borrowed a cooking creator's pacing.
What changed in practice
The clearest example was a sponsored reel for a small wearable you clip to your clothes and talk to. Before, every version was some variation of "her hands are full, she talks to it". After the remix step, the system studied short videos including a cooking creator's garlic pasta clip with millions of views and a chef's sponsored recipe video, and built a different idea from them:
The hook came from close-up cooking videos: hands working food in a steel bowl, filmed tight and fast.
The proof came from the sponsored recipe's habit of cutting between the product and the process.
The twist was the character's own: her hands are covered in oil, her phone is in her coat by the door, so she tells the device to remember something and keeps cooking.
It's still a short ad, but it reads like a real creator's cooking reel that happens to feature the product, not an advert with a person in it. The reason she can't use her phone needs no explanation.
How to do this yourself, without any tools
You don't need an automated pipeline to work this way.
Collect before you write. Before brainstorming, find five to ten short videos that did unusually well, comparing views with the creator's normal numbers. Include at least two from outside your niche.
Break each one down. Write a line each for the hook (what happens in the first second), the structure (how it builds), the payoff and the editing rhythm. Note why you think it worked.
Combine, don't copy. Pick two or three and take one specific thing from each. A sentence like "hook from A, structure from B, ending from C" keeps you honest.
Add the twist only you can add. Your character's world, your product's real use, a local detail. This is the part that makes it yours.
Check it against the originals. If your version is less specific than what you borrowed, you've lost the thing that made the source work.
If you use AI to help, give it the breakdowns, not just the topic. "Write a reel idea about X" gets you the average. "Here are four videos that worked and why; combine two of them for X, and say what you took from each" gets you something with a reason to exist.
Ethics: remix, don't rip off
There's a line between learning from a format and copying someone's work. Borrow structures, pacing, hook types and editing techniques, which are the shared language of short video. Don't reuse someone's footage, audio they own, or a specific joke or concept that is clearly theirs. And for sponsored content, keep it honest: label it as an ad, show only what the product really does, and don't invent experiences. Our guide to AI influencer ads with a real product covers that side.
The short version
Models write the average; real creative work is mostly remixing what worked.
Give your idea step real, studied examples, and ask for combinations, not inventions.
Require each idea to name its sources and what it takes from each.
Borrow the editing rhythm as well as the idea.
Keep the twist specific to your character or brand.
Every Influgen influencer has a team that does this for posts you ask for: a scout finds and studies real top videos, a head writer remixes them into ideas, and a critic checks the result before you see it. The post shows what it was inspired by. It works for food, fashion, tech and every other niche. See the pricing, or create your influencer for free now; their team starts when your spot opens.
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