As a member of my local school board, I am responsible for delivering an annual budget presentation that explains school costs to the community. While standard presentation software like Apple’s Keynote or PowerPoint handles basic charts well enough, I often find myself wanting to execute specific animations that those programs cannot easily manage. Recently, I began using a tool called Remotion to bridge that gap.
Check it out in my latest video!
Remotion is a framework that allows users to create videos programmatically using React. It is free for individuals and small teams, and while it allows for manual coding, the process becomes more efficient when paired with AI coding agents like Claude, Gemini, or OpenAI’s Codex. In my recent tests, I found that Codex offered a straightforward way to connect the AI directly to the Remotion plugin to generate motion graphics from raw data.
The workflow begins by pointing the AI toward a local project folder containing the necessary data, such as a CSV file. For my presentation, I used data regarding how cost shares shift between the three towns in our school district. I have found that using higher-intelligence models, such as GPT-5.5, tends to yield better visual results on the first attempt, even if it uses more processing credits and uses up usage allocations faster.
By prompting the AI to create an animated pie chart using the supplied data, the system generates the necessary Remotion code and files automatically.
During the initial run, the AI produces preview frames to verify its progress. Once the first iteration is complete, the tool summons Remotion’s a web-based interface where the animation can be viewed in real time. This allows for immediate refinements. For example, in my first version, the labels were marked as “PP” instead of percentages, and the animation paused at the end of every fiscal year. I was able to instruct the AI to update the labels, remove the pauses, and shorten the total runtime from 25 seconds to a more concise 15 seconds. The looping preview updated in realtime as the changes were made.
Beyond simple data visualization, the tool is capable of handling more stylistic requests. I experimented with a dark mode version of my chart that included a glow effect on the moving elements. I also tested its ability to create looping backgrounds for video production. By providing a PNG of my logo, I was able to have the AI generate a tiled, looping animation suitable for a YouTube channel. While this required some additional tweaking, it was significantly faster than building the same asset manually in a motion graphics application like Apple Motion.
When a project is ready for export, the software offers several rendering options via FFmpeg. It can output standard MP4 files or more professional formats like ProRes. This is particularly useful for video editors who need to generate graphics with transparent backgrounds, such as lower thirds or custom overlays. Moving from a raw dataset to a functional, animated graphic now takes roughly 30 minutes of iteration, providing a practical alternative to traditional manual animation methods.
All in, pairing Remotion with an AI coding tool produces some amazing results that will no doubt improve the quality of your presentations. And you can’t beat the price!
See more free app hidden gem videos here!
Disclosure: OpenAI provided some free credits to use Codex for this project but they did not review or approve this content prior to uploading. No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.