The Key Takeaways From Wistia's 2026 State of Video Webinar

The numbers are in, and they tell a pretty exciting story. We surveyed nearly 1,000 marketers and analyzed over 13 million videos (totaling more than 79 million hours of content) uploaded to Wistia, and then packed all the data into our 2026 State of Video report.

It paints a clear picture: Video demand is at an all-time high, more non-video professionals are getting behind the camera, and the bar for what “good” looks like keeps rising.

We covered some of the most interesting takeaways in our State of Video Live Show. Here’s a recap.

Video demand is higher than ever

Companies are making more videos to keep up with growing demand and higher viewer expectations.

And it’s paying off. In 2025, videos hosted on Wistia racked up a combined 2.5 billion plays, a 6% jump from the year before. And that growth wasn’t concentrated at the top. Big and small companies saw play counts climb at a similar rate.

We turned to our favorite data analyst Bart Chartman to run the numbers on play rates, page placement, and interactive elements — and at least one stat will make you rethink where you’re putting your videos.

In-house video teams are surging

The share of companies with in-house video teams jumped from 36% to 54% in just two years. That’s not a gradual drift. It’s a structural change in how companies approach video production.

The people making videos are no longer just traditional video professionals. In-house marketers, content strategists, and subject matter experts are also getting behind the camera (or in front of the screen recorder) and handling everything from pre-production to repurposing.

The reason is simple: AI.

AI is reshaping video production

62% of teams are either already using AI in their video workflows or plan to start soon, and more than half plan to increase their AI spending this year. This isn’t a trend on the horizon. It’s the new normal.

When people hear “AI in video,” they tend to picture robots generating entire videos. The reality is a lot more practical. Most teams are using AI to brainstorm, plan, and script their videos and speed up the post-production process. In most cases, it’s handling the legwork. The creative work that makes a video worth watching is still on us humans.

Chris Lavigne, our Head of Production, puts it plainly: The tools that actually move the needle aren’t the flashiest ones. He uses Claude for scripting, ElevenLabs for fixing voiceover lines without calling talent back in, Suno for background music, and Adobe Enhanced Speech for cleaning up audio. The lesson isn’t to chase every new tool. It’s to learn a few of them well.

Social videos get attention, and website videos drive action

To find out where companies are distributing their videos, we did what any reasonable team would do: interview video itself.

83% of companies are now sharing videos on social media, with LinkedIn emerging as the #1 channel for B2B videos. Social engagement nearly doubled as a success metric, jumping from 12% to 22% in a single year. Teams aren’t just counting views anymore; they also want to know if a video actually landed.

All that social growth is real, but website videos still bring the best return on investment. The data on play rates backs this up. Homepage videos see a 24% play rate, higher than product pages, contact pages, and thank you pages.

And unlike social videos, website videos can do a lot more than just get watched. You can add interactive elements like lead gen forms to drive action. Almost 20% of viewers who see a lead gen form in a video will fill it out.

One more stat worth sitting with: Long videos belong on your website. A 60+ minute video has a 52% play rate, meaning more than half of people who see your longest content hit play.

Webinars are more valuable than you think

Elise Beck, our Senior Director of Product Marketing, slid into the scene to make the case for hosting webinars.

Three out of four companies now host webinars, and one in three marketers say they’re among the most impactful video types. But the bigger insight is what happens after the live event ends.

On-demand webinars are still pulling views six months after the live event. And longer replays (30+ minutes) saw twice the engagement of shorter ones. The live event is the main show, but the replay is where the long-term value lives.

Smart teams are squeezing even more out of each webinar: 88% repurpose webinar content, 60% make replays available on landing pages, and another 60% pull social clips from them. The number of Wistia Channels featuring on-demand webinars nearly tripled. This means more teams are building full webinar hubs as self-serve content libraries.

FAQs from our audience

The live chat was busy. Our audience asked many great questions. A few came up more than once, so we figured they deserved a proper answer here.

Does labeling your event a “webinar” hurt registration, compared to something like “workshop”?

No. The event’s promise matters more than its label. If your title makes it clear what someone will walk away with, the format rarely gets in the way. What hurts registration is vagueness. An event that sounds like a sales pitch will always underperform one that sounds like a genuine skill-builder.

Should we gate our on-demand replays with lead generation forms?

The data leans toward keeping them open. Ungated content gets shared, indexed, and discovered in ways a gated asset simply can’t. A gate can still make sense if pipeline is the priority and the content is genuinely valuable. Just know what you’re optimizing for before you decide.

How polished do our videos actually need to be?

Production quality doesn’t matter as much as the quality of your content. Audiences forgive imperfect production when the content is useful. They’re a lot less forgiving of a polished video that doesn’t say anything. The same logic applies to AI voiceovers. They tend to underperform human voices, but the gap narrows when the script and pacing are strong. Get those right first.

The big takeaway

The 2026 data makes one thing unmistakably clear: Video isn’t a nice-to-have anymore. It’s central to how modern marketing works.

In-house video teams are growing, AI is lowering the barrier to produce more, and audiences are showing up for content that’s worth their time. That means where you focus your time, budget, and creative energy matters more than ever, and our report gives you the data to get those decisions right.