British artificial intelligence startup Synthesia has unveiled a new AI-powered training platform designed to transform corporate learning from passive video consumption into interactive, real-time practice sessions. The company announced the launch of Roleplay Sessions, an enterprise-focused solution that enables employees to rehearse workplace conversations with AI avatars that can respond dynamically, challenge users and provide performance-based feedback.
The launch marks a significant expansion of Synthesia’s business strategy. While the company has become widely known for helping enterprises create AI-generated training videos in minutes, its latest offering shifts the focus from simply generating educational content to measuring whether employees actually acquire and demonstrate new skills.
According to Synthesia, traditional corporate training—including video-based learning—often succeeds in delivering information but falls short of changing employee behaviour. The company believes that practical experience combined with immediate feedback is a more effective way to build workplace skills.
AI That Talks Back and Evaluates Performance
With Roleplay Sessions, employees can engage in realistic conversations with AI-powered avatars across a variety of workplace scenarios.
These include:
- Sales presentations and negotiations
- Performance review discussions
- Customer complaint handling
- Difficult leadership conversations
- Soft skills development
Unlike conventional training videos, the AI avatars actively participate in the conversation, ask follow-up questions, challenge responses and adapt the interaction based on the employee’s performance.
After each session, the platform evaluates users against predefined scoring criteria, providing detailed feedback on communication quality, decision-making and overall performance.
Beginning of a Larger AI Training Platform
Roleplay is the first product under Synthesia’s broader “Sessions” platform, which the company plans to expand into additional enterprise learning applications.
Future offerings are expected to include:
- AI-powered job interview practice
- Candidate screening simulations
- Recruitment assessments
- Additional workplace coaching modules
The expansion reflects growing demand for AI solutions that not only automate content creation but also help organisations assess workforce capabilities.
Moving Beyond AI Content Creation
Synthesia’s core business has traditionally centred on AI-generated avatars capable of producing professional training videos quickly and at significantly lower costs than conventional video production.
However, CEO and co-founder Victor Riparbelli believes enterprises are increasingly looking for measurable business outcomes rather than simply AI-generated content.
He noted that while video training performs better than documents or text-based materials, employees generally learn more effectively by actively practising real-world situations instead of only watching demonstrations.
Performance Analytics Become the New Advantage
The new platform also represents a strategic evolution for Synthesia.
Although the company’s avatar and voice technologies are proprietary, the reasoning capabilities powering conversations rely on advanced AI models, including those developed by OpenAI.
By integrating scoring systems, performance analytics and organisational insights, Synthesia aims to position itself as a comprehensive workforce performance platform rather than solely an AI avatar provider.
The system enables managers to monitor employee progress at scale, identify skill gaps across teams and measure improvements over time using structured performance data.
According to the company, organisations can gain detailed insights into how entire sales teams or leadership groups perform during simulated workplace interactions, making it easier to target future training initiatives.
Early Enterprise Adoption
Synthesia said the platform has already secured several large enterprise customers during its early rollout.
According to a company spokesperson, these include:
- One of Europe’s three largest companies by market capitalisation
- One of the top five Fortune 100 companies
- One of the world’s largest recruitment firms
The most common applications currently involve training sales professionals and leadership teams, particularly for customer-facing conversations and management scenarios requiring strong interpersonal communication.
Expansion Beyond Large Enterprises
For now, Roleplay Sessions is being offered primarily to enterprise customers.
However, Synthesia plans to expand availability over the coming months to:
- Small businesses
- Individual professionals
- Educational institutions
The company expects falling AI inference costs to make the platform more accessible to a broader range of users.
As enterprises increasingly seek evidence that artificial intelligence investments generate measurable improvements in productivity and employee performance, platforms such as Roleplay Sessions may represent the next stage in corporate AI adoption—where success is measured not only by automation, but by demonstrable improvements in workplace skills and business outcomes.
Disclaimer: This report has been editorially prepared using publicly available information and official company statements. Readers are advised to refer to Synthesia’s official announcements for complete product details.
