Synthesia in brief
Synthesia is a London-based AI video company founded in 2017 by Victor Riparbelli and other scientists and entrepreneurs. The company says more than 90% of Fortune 100 companies use its platform. In January 2026, Synthesia announced a $200 million Series E at a $4 billion valuation, led by GV with participation from Evantic, Hedosophia, NVentures, Accel, Kleiner Perkins, NEA, PSP Growth, Air Street Capital, FirstMark, and MMC Ventures. TechCrunch reported that the company crossed $100 million in annual recurring revenue in April 2025. Its audience is organizations producing training, product education, sales material, and internal communications. Synthesia turns scripts, documents, presentations, and prompts into videos with digital presenters, synthetic voices, captions, screen recordings, localized audio, and branded layouts.
A typical project begins with a script, presentation, document, prompt, or template. The user selects an AI avatar, voice, language, aspect ratio, and scene design, then edits the result in a browser-based studio. The editor supports slides, uploaded media, captions, screen recordings, brand assets, templates, collaboration, and PowerPoint import. AI dubbing translates existing videos, with voice and accent preservation and optional lip synchronization. Users can create personal avatars after identity verification and consent. Synthesia credits cover several AI features, including video generation, dubbing, surveys, B-roll, and some interactive avatar usage. Editing and previewing do not consume credits, but generation does. That shared accounting works for mixed projects and makes forecasting harder when teams produce varied content.
Synthesia is stronger than Canva for structured training and stronger than general text-to-video products when presenter consistency, localization, and administration matter. HeyGen is the closest head-to-head alternative for avatar videos, while Colossyan targets a similar training audience. Canva offers broader design flexibility, but fewer dedicated controls for enterprise avatar workflows. Synthesia’s main limitations are shared credit accounting, Basic watermarks, monthly allowances, browser dependence, and restrictions on impersonation, paid social advertising with stock avatars, and employment or education decisions based on generated output. Its privacy policy makes Synthesia controller for platform personal data, while customer agreements govern customer data. Pick Synthesia for governed business video, localization, and repeatable training; pick HeyGen or Canva when creator flexibility matters more.