Synthesia pivots from video generation to AI-driven performance coaching

British artificial intelligence startup Synthesia has launched Roleplay Sessions, an interactive enterprise training platform designed to shift corporate learning from passive video consumption to active skill development. The product allows employees to practice high-stakes workplace conversations, such as sales pitches and performance reviews, with AI avatars that provide real-time feedback, scoring, and analytics. This launch marks a strategic pivot for the company, moving beyond its established business of generating static training videos to offering performance-based coaching.

The introduction of Roleplay Sessions comes as enterprises increasingly scrutinise whether their artificial intelligence expenditures are delivering measurable returns. Synthesia cites a meta-analysis of learning research to argue that traditional corporate training often fails to change behaviour because it lacks active practice. While the company acknowledges that video performs better than text or documents, CEO and co-founder Victor Riparbelli emphasised that learning is most effective through actual practice combined with immediate feedback.

To differentiate itself in a market where underlying reasoning intelligence is often provided by third parties like OpenAI, Synthesia is layering proprietary rubrics, performance data, and analytics onto the platform. This approach aims to position the company less as an AI avatar provider and more as a performance-management platform with a video interface. The goal is to provide managers with granular data on talent capabilities, a metric that has historically been difficult to quantify at scale.

Early commercial rollouts have already attracted significant enterprise clients, including one of the top three companies by market capitalisation in Europe, one of the top five Fortune 100 companies, and one of the largest recruitment firms globally. The two most popular use cases for the platform are training sales teams and developing leadership soft skills, such as conducting difficult conversations. Customers can either build their own training programs on the platform or utilise Synthesia’s consultants to create bespoke solutions based on existing company documentation.

Roleplay Sessions is currently positioned as an enterprise offering, but Synthesia plans to expand the broader Sessions platform to small businesses, prosumers, and educational institutions in the coming months. The company intends to broaden the product’s scope to include other formats, such as job interviews and candidate screening, as inference costs continue to fall and the technology becomes more accessible.