How AI Is Reshaping Product Imagery in Building Materials

[00:01:00] Why building products brands struggle to keep up with visual content demand
[00:03:00] The evolution from CGI to AI in product imagery—and what’s changed in 2025
[00:05:00] How manufacturers use AI for concepting, storyboarding, and production acceleration
[00:07:00] Where highly produced content still matters: branding, pre-launch visuals, and sales enablement
[00:09:00] The 80/20 content rule is gone—every SKU now needs compelling imagery to convert
[00:12:00] Why your ecommerce content might be failing: context, not quality
[00:13:30] Predictions for 2026: AI as the new Photoshop, and the rise of “fresh visual storytelling”

Greg Weyman is the Founder and Managing Partner of MarketThrive, a digital visualization agency specializing in AI and CGI content for building materials brands. With a background spanning agency, brand, and ecommerce roles, Greg has firsthand experience navigating the pressure to scale high-quality content across thousands of SKUs—without breaking budgets or timelines. At MarketThrive, he helps manufacturers create compelling imagery that supports ecommerce growth, brand storytelling, and sales velocity.

Manufacturers know that visuals sell. But creating imagery that’s channel-appropriate, brand-aligned, and scalable across product lines is a constant struggle. Greg opens the episode by reflecting on the pain point: “How do we get more content that helps customers understand what they need to buy—without killing time or budget?”

The answer, increasingly, is AI-powered visualization.

Where CGI once required massive lead time and technical overhead, new AI tools make it possible to prototype, customize, and repurpose visual content more quickly. From mood boards and concept renders to launch-ready imagery and ecommerce SKUs, Greg’s team uses AI to accelerate output—without sacrificing polish or precision.

One of the most telling shifts in recent years? Challenger brands are leading the way.

Greg explains that smaller brands—those without bloated creative teams or legacy processes—are often the first to experiment with new image workflows. That means they’re faster to market, more agile with personalization, and better at delivering content that performs in real-world environments.

This is pushing larger brands to catch up—fast.

And in an era where speed matters as much as quality, that pressure is making visual content a competitive edge.

For manufacturers selling on Home Depot, Lowe’s, Wayfair, or direct-to-consumer, ecommerce is no longer a “nice to have.” And with that shift comes higher expectations for product imagery.

Beth puts it bluntly: “The 80/20 rule is dead.”

Where brands used to invest heavily in their hero SKUs and expect the rest to ride along, today’s buyers demand rich, helpful visuals for every product—especially when shopping online.

Greg explains that “if people can’t see it, they won’t buy it,” and that companies are realizing it’s no longer enough to have a handful of images for a few products. Every SKU matters. Every angle counts. And content must be tailored to the channel it lives on.

Not all visual content performs equally—and sometimes it’s not about quality, but fit.

Beth raises the point: too many brands create stunning ecommerce assets, then repurpose them across social, web, and email… only to watch engagement fall flat. Greg agrees: “Where the content lives matters. It’s not just about what looks good—it’s about what works in context.”

Social media demands raw, casual content. Ecommerce requires polished, detail-rich visuals. Blog posts may benefit from branded infographics or lifestyle imagery. Understanding the expectation of the platform is essential.

Otherwise, your beautiful content might be invisible.

Looking ahead, Greg compares the current wave of generative AI tools to the early days of digital photography: revolutionary, but still raw.

Just as Photoshop unlocked scale and creativity for visual teams decades ago, AI tools today are starting to reshape how teams think about reuse, iteration, and modular design systems. That means reimagining the same base scene with new lighting, colorways, textures—or turning stills into video-ready assets.

What matters most? Staying fresh.

“Everything is a churn cycle,” Greg says. “The news is old in a day. Product content is the same. You’ve got to keep it moving.”

You don’t need to replace your content team with AI. But you do need to adapt your visual strategy to keep up with speed, personalization, and cross-channel complexity. AI isn’t just a creative tool—it’s a content strategy enabler.

Visit marketthrivecgi.com or connect with Greg Weyman on LinkedIn.

The Smarter Building Materials Marketing podcast helps sales and marketing professionals find better ways to grow leads, sales and outperform the competition. It gives insights, examples and shares stories about how to create a results-driven digital marketing strategy for building products and construction companies of any size. SBMM is co-hosted by Venveo’s Founder, Zach Williams and Venveo’s CEO, Beth PopNikolov.

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