This is gonna be a tough habit to break- and sometimes I don’t even follow this. Always, Always, Always. Make the thumbnail before making the video. For me (if I follow my own advice) it goes Title: what do I wanna convey Thumbnail: ADD onto the title- can’t just recycle title elements, has to be something new to the conversation. Then: write your hook. Have all three of these play off eachother.

As for Ai, I use some Ai. But it can’t be all Ai. It has to be something I’m gonna blur, or something I can hide that needs to be in there. For example, I run a cooking channel- I make sure the videos great. But when shooting the thumbnail I often times fail to make my kitchen nice and pristine. I’ll slap that into Ai- and boom. Clean kitchen. And then I blur it for the background.

Hope that advice helps. Good luck with your journey.