Have you ever spent countless hours setting up equipment, filming multiple takes, and editing footage to create a single professional video? The traditional video production process is time-consuming, expensive, and technically demanding.
Synthesia changes all that by offering an innovative AI-powered platform that turns simple text scripts into polished videos featuring realistic human avatars. All this is done from your web browser, with no cameras, actors, or studios required.
In this comprehensive review, I'll analyze Synthesia's capabilities, limitations, and value proposition in depth. I aim to give you the clarity and practical insights you need to determine whether this AI video creation tool is the right solution for your needs.
Read on to know more.
What is Synthesia?
Synthesia is a cloud-based platform that allows you to create videos using AI in five simple steps:
- Write a video script with a few sentences per slide.
- Choose a template for your specific needs.
- Type your text script on each slide.
- Add visuals, sounds, animations, and more.
- Generate video with a single click.
Synthesia emerged in 2017, brought into existence by a creative collective of AI researchers and enterprising minds from UCL, Stanford, TUM, and Cambridge. Their purpose was to enable individuals to craft captivating video content, all achieved effortlessly without needing cameras, microphones, or expensive studios.
Today, Synthesia is a global leader in its industry, boasting an impressive customer base of over 50,000 clients of all sizes worldwide. This extensive network of customers includes big names like Amazon, Reuters, BBC, Accenture, Teleperformance, and many more.
What sets Synthesia apart from traditional video creation?
- AI-Driven Video Generation: Synthesia leverages cutting-edge AI technology to transform text scripts into engaging video content. By simply inputting a script, businesses can generate customized videos in minutes.
- Realistic Avatars: The platform offers an impressive range of lifelike avatars that can be tailored to represent specific demographics, ensuring relatability and engagement with your target audience.
- Multilingual Support: Synthesia supports multiple languages, enabling users to create videos in various markets and cater to a global audience. It seamlessly translates scripts into different languages while maintaining the video’s natural flow and coherence. Automatic video translation (available in 25+ languages and dialects) helps to reach a global audience.
- Customizable Branding: With Synthesia, you can effortlessly incorporate branding elements, such as logos, colors, and fonts, into the videos. This ensures consistency and reinforces brand identity throughout the content.
- Rich Visual Effects: Synthesia offers various visual effects and backgrounds that allow you to create visually stunning videos to captivate your audience and convey their message effectively.
Check how Synthesia works in this video
How to create a video with Synthesia
When I log into the platform for the first time, it shows a welcome video that guides me through the main features of Synthesia. There are also tutorial videos you can access from the dashboard.
I can select an avatar from the avatar button in the left-hand side dashboard. It is also possible to preview how the avatar looks and moves and how it speaks a specific intended language. Searching for avatars in Synthesia is easy since you can find your favorite avatar by typing "I am looking for a young man with white clothes" or "I am searching for a male doctor."
In my experience, Synthesia offers the most extensive library and diversity of stock avatars. You will find the perfect avatar no matter what video you intend to create. And there is always the possibility of creating a custom avatar.
There are two types of custom avatars in Synthesia. WebCam avatars are those that can be created using a webcam or PC camera, and custom avatars require filming in a studio.
You can show the entire avatar body, circle (with customizable background color and shadow), or only voice.
Changing the avatar position in pre-defined parts of the screen or setting it manually in a specific area is also possible.
Some avatars can move with micro gestures: nod, heads yes, head no, and eyebrows up. Synthesia updates its avatars frequently, and many avatars can perform various gestures, including nodding, shaking the head, agreeing with a yes, and looking surprised. Although Synthesia avatar gestures look natural and human-like, these can´t surpass Colossyan´s emotions, aging and avatar expressions.
Synthesia offers the ability to customize avatars, allowing you to create videos that reflect your brand's unique identity. You can choose from a wide range of brand colors to personalize your avatar's appearance and ensure a cohesive and recognizable visual representation. With this feature, it is easy to strengthen your brand's presence by recoloring clothes and adding logos to your avatar.
Check how it works in this video:
Synthesia features lots of pre-made video templates. This is a useful resource to start creating a video instead of a blank canvas. These templates can be customized to your liking, but it is also possible to start a template from scratch.
Customization is available for any item, including backgrounds and fonts. Fonts are fully customizable, with colors, size, justification, and more options.
There is a vast library of royalty-free media assets to fine-tune your video. Synthesia gets Images and videos from Shutterstock and animated and static icons from Icon8. The variety and quality of these media set this platform apart and add lots of value.
Furthermore, you can also upload your own media and logo to keep consistent branding.
There is also a comprehensive library of music assets. You can add music from a Shutterstock library, and you can play any soundtrack to test if it is the right one for your video before adding it to the scene. There is also the option to upload your own music file provided its format is MP3, OGG, WAV, AAC and FLAC.
Avatars can also speak your own voice, but the voice upload feature is only available on Enterprise Plan. Notice that voiceover upload is available on standard plans on Elai and HeyGen.
Synthesia editor is scene-based and not timeline-based as traditional video editors, so you have to work each scene separately.
Each scene can have its own script, and I must type it in the lower part of the screen. Here I can set language (from a library of 60+ available), voices from a library of 400+ available, and subtitles.
I tested multiple English and Spanish voices. Their quality was excellent and indistinguishable from human voices. I can add pauses and select a specific word in the script to add an alternative pronunciation.
Scenes can have enter and exit animations, and you won´t find in any other platform the granular control that Synthesia offers in these items.
The screen recording button lets you add visuals right from your screen, a helpful feature not always available in this type of platforms. This tool is useful if I want to record the whole screen, a certain area of the screen or a browser tab, trim the video and even sync the screen recording with the audio.
Synthesia has a built-in AI feature that helps to write a draft script. Based on your input, the system crafts a full script with scenes and voices. You must describe your target audience, topics, tone and more fields that include specific information and details. Once you consider the draft is complete, click on “generate script” and you will get a first draft. You can regenerate it if you think it needs improvement, otherwise go to the editor and you will find a script with scenes including an avatar and voices. Of course you can edit the script and any part of the video.
Once you are comfortable with the video, click play and check how it works. In this stage, avatars have no animation, and the video won´t show at full resolution. If everything is ok, click “Generate” and wait some minutes for the video to render.
The dashboard is intuitive and clean, and I didn´t experience glitches or frozen pages.
Admins can invite guests to review videos before publishing, but - as in similar tools - there is no formal review workflow available.
Synthesia reviews and support
Regarding support, an icon on the lower left screen is always available to get in touch. This icon shows all the different ways you can get help or access tutorial resources. This is a useful approach; you don't need to exit the dashboard searching for a help page.
Synthesia Case Studies
Synthesia showcases many case studies on its website that can help you understand how this platform works and how customers managed to improve video content creation. I am mentioning below a few cases, but you can visit Synthesia´s website to read more.
- DuPont: Saved up to $10,000 per training video using Synthesia for global workforce upskilling.
- Spirit Airlines: Reduced phone support inquiries by 76% through effective employee benefits communication via AI videos.
- Heineken: Trained 70,000 employees worldwide using AI-powered video transformation.
- Zoom: Accelerated training video production by 90%, enabling efficient training for over 1,000 salespeople.
- BSH Home Appliances: Achieved 70% more efficient training for 60,000 employees.
- Avetta: Boosted productivity of 150 support agents by speeding up ramp-to-proficiency by 20%.
- Electrolux: Streamlined Europe-wide training for 15,000 stakeholders in 30+ languages.
These case studies highlight Synthesia's ability to revolutionize video production, making it faster, more cost-effective, and scalable for diverse applications such as training, onboarding, marketing, and compliance.
Synthesia Pros and Cons from G2 Users
I found that Synthesia has a score of 4.8 out of 5 on G2, based on 1,977 reviews. This excellent rating reflects customer opinions about the platform.
I compiled user feedback from G2, a leading software review site.
Based on this data, users find Synthesia's primary strengths to be its ease of use and quality. However, the platform faces criticism regarding avatar limitations and the limited selection of available avatars. Users also expressed concerns about AI limitations, avatar quality issues, and restricted customization options.
Synthesia Pros: What I Like
- Comprehensive Onboarding and Tutorials: Synthesia offers an unparalleled onboarding experience with a wealth of resources to help users get started. From detailed video tutorials and webinars to case studies and a dedicated help page, Synthesia has you covered with onboarding.
- Realistic and Customizable Avatars: Synthesia’s avatars are among the most lifelike in the industry, with natural movements and exceptional lip-syncing capabilities. The platform also allows for extensive customization, and you can create avatars that align with your brand identity. Options include custom clothing, logos, and micro gestures like nodding or raising eyebrows.
- Intuitive User Interface: The platform’s clean and intuitive design makes creating professional videos easy for users of all experience levels. Its streamlined workflow minimizes the learning curve, allowing users to focus on creativity rather than technical challenges.
- Global Reach with Multilingual Support: Synthesia supports over 120 languages and accents, making it a powerful tool for businesses targeting international audiences. Its automatic translation feature ensures that videos maintain a natural flow and coherence across different languages.
- Certified Service Providers and Security: Synthesia offers access to a network of accredited service providers for tasks like video creation, custom avatars, and translations. Its strong focus on security, with SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliance, also ensures businesses can trust the platform with sensitive data.
Mario here. I am the owner of Vidmetoo, a one-man band.
I founded this website to provide you with useful insights about video tools and related resources. Thanks for reading!