---
title: "AI media generation workflows"
sidebarTitle: "AI media generation"
description: "Learn how to use Trigger.dev for AI media generation including image creation, video synthesis, audio generation, and multi-modal content workflows"
---

import UseCasesCards from "/snippets/use-cases-cards.mdx";

## Overview

Build AI media generation pipelines that handle unpredictable API latencies and long-running operations. Generate images, videos, audio, and multi-modal content with automatic retries, progress tracking, and no timeout limits.

## Featured examples

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card
    title="Product image generator"
    icon="book"
    href="/guides/example-projects/product-image-generator"
  >
    Transform product photos into professional marketing images using Replicate.
  </Card>
  <Card
    title="Meme generator (human-in-the-loop)"
    icon="book"
    href="/guides/example-projects/meme-generator-human-in-the-loop"
  >
    Generate memes with DALL·E 3 and add human approval steps.
  </Card>
  <Card
    title="Vercel AI SDK image generation"
    icon="book"
    href="/guides/example-projects/vercel-ai-sdk-image-generator"
  >
    Generate images from text prompts using the Vercel AI SDK.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Benefits of using Trigger.dev for AI media generation workflows

**Pay only for active compute, not AI inference time:** Checkpoint-resume pauses during AI API calls. Generate content that takes minutes or hours without paying for idle inference time.

**No timeout limits for long generations:** Handle generations that take minutes or hours without execution limits. Perfect for high-quality video synthesis and complex multi-modal workflows.

**Human approval gates for brand safety:** Add review steps before publishing AI-generated content. Pause workflows for human approval using waitpoint tokens.

## Production use cases

<CardGroup cols={1}>

  <Card title="Icon customer story" href="https://trigger.dev/customers/icon-customer-story">

Read how Icon uses Trigger.dev to process and generate thousands of videos per month for their AI-driven video creation platform.

</Card>

<Card title="Papermark customer story" href="https://trigger.dev/customers/papermark-customer-story">

Read how Papermark process thousands of documents per month using Trigger.dev.

</Card>
</CardGroup>

## Example workflow patterns

<Tabs>
 <Tab title="AI content with approval">
    **Supervisor pattern with approval gate**. Generates AI content, pauses execution with wait.forToken to allow human review, applies feedback if needed, publishes approved content.

<div align="center">

```mermaid
graph TB
    A[generateContent] --> B[createWithAI]
    B --> C[wait.forToken approval]
    C --> D{Approved?}

    D -->|Yes| E[publishContent]
    D -->|Needs revision| F[applyFeedback]
    F --> B
```

</div>
  </Tab>
  <Tab title="AI image generation">
    Simple AI image generation. Receives prompt and parameters, calls OpenAI DALL·E 3, post-processes result, uploads to storage.

<div align="center">

```mermaid
graph TB
    A[generateImage] --> B[optimizeImage]
    B --> C[uploadToStorage]
    C --> D[updateDatabase]
```

</div>
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Batch image generation">
    **Coordinator pattern with rate limiting**. Receives batch of generation requests, coordinates parallel processing with configurable concurrency to respect API rate limits, validates outputs, stores results.

<div align="center">

```mermaid
graph TB
    A[processBatch] --> B[coordinateGeneration]
    B --> C[batchTriggerAndWait]

    C --> D[generateImage1]
    C --> E[generateImage2]
    C --> F[generateImageN]

    D --> G[validateResults]
    E --> G
    F --> G

    G --> H[storeResults]
    H --> I[notifyCompletion]
```

</div>
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Multi-step image enhancement">
    **Coordinator pattern with sequential processing**. Generates initial content with AI, applies style transfer or enhancement, upscales resolution, optimizes and compresses for delivery.

<div align="center">

```mermaid
graph TB
    A[processCreative] --> B[generateWithAI]
    B --> C[applyStyleTransfer]
    C --> D[upscaleResolution]
    D --> E[optimizeAndCompress]
    E --> F[uploadToStorage]
```

</div>
  </Tab>

</Tabs>

<UseCasesCards />