Key Highlights
- 63.7% of teams rely mostly or entirely on specialists to create their videos.
- Only 9.9% of teams use a model where anyone can create video content independently.
- That fully autonomous model performs worst out of the four: 60.6% of videos are rated good or very good, compared with 80.9% for the “specialists with support” model.
- 44.1% of teams still can’t handle a minor video edit on their own.
All data in this article comes from our 2026 video study, conducted with 688 marketing and communications professionals.
Only 9.9% of teams let anyone create videos independently. On paper, it sounds like the ideal setup: no waiting, no bottlenecks, everyone creates what they need when they need it. In reality, it’s the lowest-performing model in the entire study: 60.6% of videos are rated good or very good, compared with 80.9% for the best-performing model.
The gap cuts both ways. On one side, 63.7% of teams still rely mostly or entirely on specialists, which directly limits how often they can publish. On the other, opening the floodgates doesn’t solve the problem either. So the real question is: where’s the right balance?
How Many Teams Really Let Everyone Create Video?
Only 9.9% of teams use a model where anyone can create video content independently, compared with 63.7% that rely mostly or entirely on specialists. Here’s the full breakdown across the four models:
- Mostly created by specialists, with support: ≈35%
- Created only by specialists: ≈28%
- Shared across several team members: ≈26%
- Anyone can create independently: ≈10%
That dependence directly limits video publishing frequency. But the opposite solution, giving everyone access without structure, isn’t the answer people think it is.
No. The “anyone can create independently” model ranks last out of the four models tested. Here’s the ranking based on self-reported good or very good performance:
- Mostly created by specialists, with support: 80.9% (including 29% rated “very good”)
- Shared across several team members: 76.7% (including 26%). This is the model built on shared templates and a centralized media library
- Created only by specialists: 74.2% (including 24%)
- Anyone can create video content independently: 60.6% (including 17%)
The two highest-performing models are collaborative. Neither the specialist-only model nor the fully autonomous one comes out on top.
Why Doesn’t Autonomy Without Structure Deliver Results?
What makes the difference isn’t who creates the video. It’s whether shared standards already exist. When the creative team sets up the templates and brand rules upfront, the rest of the business can create without waiting for a specialist to step in.
Without that structure, the friction stays the same even for small edits. 44.1% of teams still can’t manage a minor change on their own: swapping a logo or fixing a typo requires approval (32.8%), specialist input (7.6%), or even a full new review cycle (3.6%).
The cost shows up most clearly in requests coming from outside the creative team.
When someone without video expertise needs content, 34.3% create it using simple tools, 34% go through a specialist, 24.9% make a draft but still need help, and 6.8% see the content deprioritized or never created at all. In other words, two out of three requests still depend on a specialist being available at exactly the right time.
How Do You Spread Video Creation Without Losing Brand Control?
Split the work into two categories. Specialists should keep ownership of content that’s critical to brand image. For everything else, they should build templates the wider team can use on their own. The result: fewer bottlenecks, fewer dropped projects, and quality that stays under control.
This only works when the structure is in place before access is expanded. Templates create the fast lane, so simple content never turns sloppy, and approval workflows stay focused on the content that truly needs them.
The reasons video content never gets produced reinforce the point: not enough resources or capacity (43.3%), production takes too long (37.8%), and too many internal approvals (37.5%). Budget only comes fourth (26.6%). This is a workflow problem, not a budget problem.
Structured access, where anyone can create, within the framework set by the creative team, is one of the four pillars that consistently show up across the highest-performing video organizations in the study. Ideas stop dying in the specialist queue, and the creative team stops being the bottleneck for content that never needed their full involvement in the first place.
Full Study: 688 Marketing and Communications Professionals Surveyed About Their Video Production in 2026
To explore the other three pillars and the full dataset.
Read the full report. Other takeaways from the 2026 study:
