Synthesia’s Next Act: AI Avatars That Coach, Challenge, and Measure Performance

Synthesia is expanding beyond AI-generated training videos with Roleplay Sessions, a new enterprise product that lets employees practice real-world conversations with interactive AI avatars.

Instead of simply presenting information, the avatar responds, challenges the employee, and evaluates their performance against a predefined rubric. The system is initially focused on high-stakes workplace situations such as sales pitches, performance reviews, leadership conversations, and customer complaints.

The launch reflects a broader shift in enterprise AI. Synthesia believes companies are becoming less interested in impressive demonstrations and more focused on measurable business outcomes. By combining simulations with scoring, performance data, and analytics, the company is positioning itself as more than an AI video provider, it is moving toward becoming a performance-management and workforce-development platform.

Key Points

• Roleplay Sessions introduces live, interactive practice. Employees can have realistic conversations with AI avatars that respond and push back rather than simply delivering scripted training content.
• Performance is measured against a rubric. The platform evaluates each interaction, giving companies data about employee capabilities and areas for improvement.
• Sales and leadership training are the leading use cases. Popular scenarios include practicing product pitches, handling difficult conversations, conducting performance reviews, and developing soft skills.
• Roleplay is part of a larger platform. Synthesia plans to expand its “Sessions” offering into areas such as job interviews and candidate screening.
• Synthesia is responding to weaknesses in traditional corporate training. The company argues that videos and documents can inform employees, but meaningful learning usually requires practice and feedback.
• The product creates a more defensible business position. Although Synthesia uses proprietary avatar and voice technology, the underlying reasoning is powered by OpenAI. Rubrics, analytics, and performance data give Synthesia an additional layer of differentiation.
• Executives can gain a company-wide view of talent. Managers could use aggregated roleplay results to understand how an entire sales team or leadership group is performing.
• Large enterprises are already using the product. Synthesia said early customers include a leading European company by market capitalization, a top-five Fortune 100 company, and one of the world’s largest recruitment businesses.
• Customers can build their own programs or request a custom solution. Synthesia’s consultants can create bespoke training experiences using a company’s existing documents and internal context.
• Broader access may come soon. Roleplay is currently an enterprise product, but Synthesia aims to make it available to small businesses, prosumers, and potentially educational institutions as AI inference costs decline.

Key Quotes

“Video performs way better than text or sending out a document. But for most things, we learn the best by actually practicing something rather than just reading it.”

This captures Synthesia’s central argument: content delivery alone is not enough. The company sees practice as the missing step between receiving information and developing a usable skill.

“From a managerial executive layer, we’re seeing huge interest in mapping out the talent in their company in a way that’s been really difficult to do before.”

The product is not only designed for individual learning. Synthesia also sees an opportunity to give executives a clearer, data-driven picture of workforce capabilities.

“If you have your entire sales team practice with an AI role player, you can get very granular data on how your sales force is doing overall.”

This highlights the platform’s potential value as an organizational analytics tool, particularly for companies with large sales teams.

Implications

Synthesia’s expansion suggests that enterprise AI products may increasingly be judged by whether they can demonstrate improvements in employee behavior and business performance, not merely by how quickly they generate content.

Roleplay Sessions could also change how companies assess workforce skills. Instead of relying only on manager observations, surveys, or course-completion statistics, organizations could collect detailed performance data from simulated conversations.

The move may strengthen Synthesia’s competitive position. AI avatars and generated voices can become easier for competitors to reproduce, but a platform containing company-specific rubrics, historical performance information, training programs, and analytics could be harder for customers to replace.

The product also places Synthesia closer to employee assessment and talent management. As the Sessions platform expands into interviews and candidate screening, its technology could influence not only how employees are trained but also how candidates are evaluated.

Most importantly, the launch represents Synthesia’s bet on the next phase of enterprise AI: moving from content that looks impressive to systems that can prove they produced a measurable result.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/22/synthesias-ai-training-platform-is-moving-beyond-videos-into-live-coaching/