Synthesia launches AI coaching tool for sales, leadership training

Synthesia, a British startup known for using AI to generate corporate training videos in minutes, has long pitched cost savings and speed as its core value proposition. On Wednesday, the company announced Roleplay Sessions, a departure from that focus: instead of creating video content, Roleplay enables employees to practice real conversations—sales pitches, performance reviews, difficult customer interactions—with an AI avatar that responds dynamically, challenges them, and provides a performance score based on a rubric.

The product addresses what Synthesia sees as a critical gap in enterprise training. CEO Victor Riparbelli explained to TechCrunch that "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." The company cites learning research showing that most corporate training—including its own core video product—stops short of actually changing employee behavior; it informs and demonstrates but does not drive the behavior change that real practice provides.

Roleplay is the first offering under a broader "Sessions" platform Synthesia intends to expand into job interviews and candidate screening. The startup has already signed early commercial customers, including one of the top three companies by market cap in Europe, one of the top five Fortune 100, and one of the world's largest recruitment companies. The two most common use cases so far involve training sales teams and leadership, both focused on soft skills like selling a product or handling difficult conversations. Customers can build training programs themselves on the platform or work with Synthesia's consultants to create bespoke solutions that draw on the company's existing training documents and context.

From a business strategy perspective, Roleplay moves Synthesia beyond the commodity avatar market. While its avatar and voice technology remain proprietary, the underlying reasoning intelligence relies on OpenAI. By adding a performance-management layer—rubrics, performance data, and analytics—Synthesia is repositioning itself as a talent-insight platform rather than merely an AI avatar vendor. Riparbelli noted that having an entire sales team practice with an AI role player generates "very granular data on how your sales force is doing overall," a capability that appeals to executives trying to map talent and performance across their organizations.

For now, Roleplay is an enterprise offering, but Synthesia plans to roll it out to small businesses, prosumers, and educational institutions in the next few months as inference costs decline. Riparbelli sees products like Roleplay as the next phase of enterprise AI adoption, where companies move past evaluating whether AI "looks good in a social media demo" and focus instead on whether it generates measurable business outcomes.

Synthesia's pivot from content generation to performance coaching reflects a maturing enterprise AI market. The startup built its reputation by allowing companies to create training videos in minutes at lower cost than traditional production. However, the company recognized a fundamental gap: video content alone rarely changes employee behavior. By citing learning research showing that practice and feedback are the drivers of actual learning, Synthesia is tackling what many enterprise customers have quietly struggled with—proving that training spend produces measurable results, not just knowledge transfer.

The move also addresses a competitive moat challenge. Synthesia's avatar and voice technology are proprietary, but the underlying AI reasoning comes from OpenAI, making the core technology less defensible in a crowded market. By wrapping its avatars in a layer of rubrics, performance data, and analytics, the company shifts identity from an AI avatar vendor to a talent-management platform. This layering is strategically important: it creates stickiness through data and insight that go beyond the avatar interaction itself. A manager gaining granular visibility into sales-team performance across hundreds of practice sessions has a harder reason to switch vendors.

The early customer set—including a top-three European company by market cap and a top-five Fortune 100 firm—validates that large enterprises see value in the approach. The concentration in sales and leadership training (soft skills) also signals where the company sees quickest ROI: these are areas where behavior change and measurable outcome (close rate, team morale, retention) are most directly linked.