Seedance 2.0 reset the economics of video creation for small businesses. Here's what it does, why it matters, and five practical ways to use it now.
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By Enzo Sison, Founder of Prism
On February 12, ByteDance released Seedance 2.0.
Within 72 hours, it became the most talked-about AI tool on the internet. Elon Musk posted three words: "It's happening fast." People compared it to the DeepSeek moment that rattled Wall Street last year.
And most small business owners didn't even notice.
That's the gap I want to close with this post. Because what just happened isn't a tech story. It's a business story. And if you run a local business - a dental (opens in a new tab) practice (opens in a new tab), a med spa, a law firm, a contracting company - this changes the math on how you create content, run ads, and show up online.
Let me explain.
Forget the hype for a second. Here's what matters.
Seedance 2.0 is an AI video generation model. You give it text, images, audio, or even a reference video - and it produces cinematic-quality video in minutes. Not hours. Not days. Minutes.
Previous AI video tools were novelties. Fun to play with, unusable for real work. Hands melted. Faces drifted. Physics didn't exist. You'd generate ten clips and maybe one was passable.
Seedance 2.0 is different. It has a reported 90%+ usability rate on generated clips. Characters stay consistent across shots. The audio syncs natively - footsteps land when feet hit the ground. Camera movements feel directed, not random. It accepts text, images, video clips, and audio files simultaneously as input.
The cost? Roughly $10/month for full access.
Let that sink in. The same type of video content that would have cost you $2,000-$5,000 from a production company six months ago can now be prototyped for less than your Netflix subscription.
These are the kinds of outputs that pushed Seedance 2.0 into the mainstream conversation this week.
This is the "big-budget trailer" use case: dramatic motion, fast cuts, and high production feel without a full studio setup.
This shows how quickly people are testing recognizable cinematic styles and character consistency in action-heavy scenes.
This is the most important one for business owners: a believable UGC ad format you can iterate fast for paid social testing.
Here's the thing most people miss about AI.
It's not about the technology. It never was. It's about leverage.
Naval Ravikant talks about the four types of leverage: labor, capital, code, and media. For most of human history, small business owners only had access to the first two. You hired people. You spent money. That was it.
Code and media were reserved for companies with engineering teams and production budgets.
That wall just came down.
Seedance 2.0 - and the wave of tools like it - means a solo operator or a five-person team now has the same media production capability that a Fortune 500 marketing department had two years ago. Not a watered-down version. The real thing.
The question isn't whether this technology will impact your industry. It already is. The question is whether you'll be the one using it or the one competing against someone who does.
I'm not here to give you a tech demo. I'm here to help you make money. So let's get practical.
1. Product and Service Showcase Videos
If you're a contractor, show a before-and-after walkthrough of a kitchen remodel - generated from photos you already have on your phone. If you're a dentist, create a 15-second clip showing the smile transformation process. If you're a med spa, demonstrate a treatment in a polished, professional video without ever hiring a videographer.
Upload your before-and-after photos. Add a text prompt describing the transformation. Seedance generates the video. You post it. Total time: under 30 minutes. Total cost: essentially zero.
2. Ad Creative at Scale
Here's where the real money is.
The #1 factor in paid advertising performance isn't your targeting, your budget, or your bidding strategy. It's your creative. The image or video people actually see. And the golden rule of paid media is: more creative variations = more chances to find a winner.
The problem has always been production cost. Testing 20 different video ads used to require 20 different shoots, or at minimum 20 different editing sessions. Now you can generate dozens of variations in an afternoon. Different angles. Different pacing. Different hooks. Test them all. Let the data tell you what works.
This isn't theoretical. This is how the best-performing advertisers already operate. AI just made it accessible to everyone.
3. Social Media Content That Doesn't Require You on Camera
I talk to business owners every week who know they should be posting more video content. They know short-form video drives engagement. They know the algorithm rewards it. But they don't want to be on camera. They don't have time to shoot. They don't have the budget to hire someone.
AI video solves this. You can create professional-looking content from your existing photos, brand assets, and a written description. No camera. No lighting setup. No editing software. Just your ideas and a prompt.
The businesses that win on social media in 2026 won't be the ones with the biggest production budgets. They'll be the ones who publish consistently. AI makes consistency possible.
4. Client-Facing Presentations and Proposals
Imagine sending a prospective client a personalized video walkthrough of what their project could look like - before they've even signed a contract. A landscaper showing a 3D-rendered vision of a backyard redesign. A real estate agent creating a neighborhood highlight reel for an out-of-town buyer. An interior designer showing a room transformation.
This is the kind of thing that used to require specialized software and hours of work. Now it's a prompt and a few reference images.
The business that shows you a vision closes the deal over the business that just describes one.
5. Recruitment and Employer Branding
This one's underrated. If you're hiring - and in 2026, who isn't - video content about your workplace, culture, and team is one of the strongest magnets for talent. A polished 15-second clip of your team in action, posted on your Google Business Profile (opens in a new tab) or your careers page, does more than any job listing.
You don't need a professional videographer for this anymore. You need a phone, a few photos, and a model that understands what you're going for.
Let me be straight with you, because that's what I do.
Seedance 2.0 is not magic. It has limitations. Clips max out at 15 seconds. Fine text and detailed hand movements are still weak spots across all AI video tools. The model was just released on February 12th and full international access is still rolling out - right now, most English-speaking users access it through platforms like Dreamina, third-party aggregators, or emerging wrapper services.
There are also real ethical questions in play. Hollywood studios have already raised copyright concerns about the training data. ByteDance is navigating that in real time. As a business owner, you should use these tools to create original content for your brand - not to replicate someone else's work.
And here's the biggest caveat of all: the tool is only as good as the strategy behind it. A bad marketing strategy with AI video is still a bad marketing strategy. The technology amplifies your approach. It doesn't replace it.
Steve Jobs used to say that technology alone is not enough. It's technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing.
He was right. The businesses that will benefit most from Seedance 2.0 and the AI video revolution aren't the ones who are most technically sophisticated. They're the ones who understand their customers deeply enough to tell a compelling story - and now have the tools to tell it at scale.
The gap between "I know I should be doing video" and "I'm doing video" just went from $5,000 wide to $10 wide.
The only question left is whether you walk through it.
At Prism, we help local businesses turn tools like these into growth. If you want help building a content and advertising strategy that leverages AI without losing the human touch, let's talk (opens in a new tab).
