It is a scripting language so a bit like coding but for simple things there are a lot of tutorials out there. It takes time to get used to it but if you get the hang of it is really easy.
This is the Beginner Tutorial from the AutoHotKey website: https://autohotkey.com/docs/Tutorial.htm
It sounds like you're looking for an app that will behave like the Windows emoji shortcut, but instead display (a folder of?) GIFs, I assume preferring that they be animated so that you can select them visually. Is that accurate?
It might be a lot to ask of a keyboard shortcut, since it'd have to have its own GUI and interface for selection and all, but if you could find an app to at least show the GIFs and let you specify one, I bet we could help glue the rest together! I know that isn't helpful, and neither is this, but your request reminds me of fzf, a surprisingly flexible utility for finding files. It wouldn't surprise me if some brave soul out there had extended fzf to do something like what you want, even with graphics, but I mention this more out of interest than hope for a solution.