Synthesia - the practical guide.

Synthesia is an AI video generation platform that turns scripts into talking-head videos using AI avatars in 140+ languages. Founded in London in 2017, it is the enterprise default for AI avatar video, used widely for L&D, internal comms, sales enablement and product walkthroughs. It also supports custom avatars trained on your own people with consent.

Enterprises and mid-market teams producing high volumes of video at low marginal cost - L&D teams, internal comms, sales enablement, customer education and localisation. Strong for multilingual training video. Not a fit for cinematic content, ads needing real human nuance, or one-off creative videos.

Starter plan around $29/user/month with limited avatars and minutes. Creator/Enterprise plans scale minutes, avatars, custom-avatar slots, brand kits and SSO, with enterprise pricing typically several thousand pounds annually. Free demo video available before signup.

Right when you need to produce dozens or hundreds of training, comms or product videos a year and human filming is too slow or costly. Strong for localisation. Wrong fit for high-emotion brand films, performance-led ads, or any context where audiences will reject obvious AI presenters.

Avatars still read as AI for many viewers - lean into informational rather than emotional contexts. Custom avatars require explicit talent consent and contracts. Lip-sync and pronunciation can stumble on technical terms; review every script. Minute caps are easy to underestimate at first.