Synthesia now lets you make AI avatar presentations using a webcam

Synthesia, a British artificial intelligence startup, on Monday showed off a slew of new product updates, including the ability to create your own Apple-style keynote presentations with AI avatars using just a laptop webcam or your phone.

The seven-year-old firm, which is backed by Nvidiasaid the new product updates will make it more of a comprehensive video production package for large companies, and not just a platform that offers users the ability to create AI-generated avatars.

Among the new updates Synthesia is rolling out is the ability to produce AI avatars using webcams or a phone, “full” avatars with hands and arms, and a screen recording tool that shows an AI avatar guiding you through what you are looking at.

Synthesia, which says it’s used by almost half of the Fortfune 500, uses AI avatars for all kinds of purposes.

These can range from creating training videos tailored to guide employees through certain processes, or generating promotional material that can appear in the form of a video rather than in the form of an email or other text communications.

But it wasn’t always like that. According to co-founder and CEO Victor Riparbelli, in the first three years of the company’s history, Synthesia actually began trying to sell its technology to Hollywood agencies and big-budget video production companies. The firm used computer vision for an AI dubbing tool that made mouth movements more vivid for different languages.

“What we realized was that the quality threshold to do something with these guys was so high that no matter what we do, we’re going to be a very small part of a much larger process,” Riparbelli told CNBC in an interview at the firm. London office.

“What was most interesting was the democratization aspect: There are millions of people in the world who want to make videos, but they’re not making videos today because they don’t have the budget.”

In an Apple-style keynote, Synthesia’s CEO unveiled the firm’s new products, touting them as a more productivity-focused set of tools for use by businesses, rather than just a platform that provides AI avatars.

One of the biggest new features the firm showed off was an option to create AI-generated avatars by recording less than five minutes of footage using a webcam or your phone. You can also clone your voice to make avatars speak in many different languages

Typically, to make an AI avatar using Synthesia’s platform, you have to go to a studio in person. Human actors enter a recording booth, record their voices and perform lines in front of a green screen on an actual shooting set.

This is all the training data to provide Synthesia’s AI algorithm with the facial and vocal nuances it needs to create human-like avatars that speak in an expressive manner. Earlier this year, Synthesia debuted new expressive avatars that can convey human emotions, including happiness, sadness and frustration.

But now, Synthesia is introducing new software that will make it easier for users to produce a digital version of themselves from anywhere, using just a webcam and Synthesia’s software.

The company is also rolling out the ability to create full-body avatars. This is different from the current Synthesia avatars, which are limited to portrait views only. Now, you can go into a studio with dozens of cameras, sensors and lights around you to make avatars that can move their hands.

Generating hands is something that has traditionally been difficult for AI to do – often because hands are only a small part of the human body and typically don’t focus on visual content.

Synthesia also debuted the option to play videos of AI avatars speaking in any language they like, whether it’s English, French, German or Chinese.

In the future, Synthesia says, it will be able to tailor AI avatars for different countries: For example, a Nigerian avatar that guides a user through a tutorial rather than an American one.

Synthesia also launched a new AI video assistant that can produce summaries of articles and entire documents. This could be an HR specialist making a quick video explaining the company’s benefits packages, for example.

Another big feature the company is introducing is a new screen recording tool, which shows an AI avatar guiding you through what you’re looking at.

In CNBC’s interview with him, Riparbelli characterized what Synthesia is trying to do as an enterprise-focused product overhaul that would make it more similar to giants like Microsoft, SalesforceAND Larger in the enterprise category.

“The world has been fascinated by these things for the last 12 to 18 to 24 months, which is great,” Riparbelli told CNBC.

“But now we’ve experimented a lot and found the right use cases for these technologies that have sustainable business value. They’re not just a short-term PR moment.”

“You need to achieve the business goal of reducing customer support tickets by displaying video instead of text; or sell by making videos instead of just sending emails,” he added.

“Now people are building workflows around that. They need better ways to achieve their business goals, not just an interface to AI models. That’s where we’re going as a company.”

Last year, Synthesia raised $90 million from investors, including US chipmaker Nvidia and venture capital firm Accel, in a funding round that valued it at $1 billion and gave it “unicorn” status.

The company’s competitors include AI video tools Veed, Colossyan, Elai and HeyGen. And Chinese-owned social media app TikTok also recently debuted Symphony Assistant, a product that lets creators make their own AI avatars.

The company makes money through a number of plans at subscription prices ranging from $22 for a “starter” plan and $67 for a “creator” plan, to customized “enterprise” plans where pricing is based on negotiation with the company’s sales team. Synthesis.