AI Training Is Broken. Synthesia Just Fixed It.
Most corporate training doesn’t change behavior. It just fills time.
You’ve seen it: the 20-minute video on ‘effective feedback’ that ends with a quiz you half-fill out while checking Slack. The compliance module that auto-advances because nobody’s watching. The PowerPoint deck that gets archived after the all-hands.
Synthesia’s old product — AI-generated training videos — was better than text. But it was still passive. You watched. You nodded. You forgot.
Now, they’ve built something that doesn’t just show you how to handle a tough conversation. It makes you have it.
Enter Roleplay Sessions: an AI-powered, live-coaching platform where employees practice sales pitches, performance reviews, and customer complaints with avatars that push back, interrupt, and score them in real time. No more pretending. No more checkbox training. Just raw, unfiltered practice — with feedback that doesn’t come from a manager who’s too busy to care.
This isn’t a feature update. It’s a paradigm shift.
The Real Moat Isn’t the Avatar — It’s the Data
Synthesia’s co-founder Victor Riparbelli put it bluntly: "Video performs way better than text. But we learn best by doing."
That’s the core insight behind Roleplay. The AI avatars aren’t the innovation — they’ve had those for years. What’s new is the layer on top: rubrics, performance analytics, and behavioral scoring.
Suddenly, you can measure whether your sales team actually improved their objection-handling technique. You can see if your managers are avoiding difficult conversations — or if they’re finally learning how to deliver criticism without triggering defensiveness.
"From a managerial executive layer," Riparbelli told TechCrunch, "we’re seeing huge interest in mapping out the talent in their company in a way that’s been really difficult to do before."
That’s the hook for enterprise buyers. It’s not about AI being cool. It’s about AI being accountable.
The Early Adopters Are Already Scaling
Synthesia won’t name names — but they’ve got customers in the top three companies by market cap in Europe, one of the top five Fortune 100, and one of the world’s biggest recruitment firms.
Why them? Because they’re drowning in soft skills gaps. Sales teams that can’t close. Managers who avoid feedback. HR teams that can’t scale coaching.
Roleplay doesn’t solve all of it. But it solves the part that’s been ignored: practice.
The two most common use cases? Sales training and leadership development. The most common scenario: a sales rep practicing how to respond when a prospect says, "I’m happy with my current vendor." The AI avatar doesn’t just nod. It says, "That’s not true. You’re not offering anything new. Why should I switch?" Then it scores the rep on empathy, clarity, and value articulation.
This is the kind of thing that used to require expensive, time-consuming simulations. Now? It’s automated. Scalable. Repeatable.
It’s Not Just for Big Companies — Yet
Right now, Roleplay is an enterprise product. But Riparbelli says the goal is to bring it to small businesses, freelancers, and even educational institutions as inference costs keep falling.
That’s the real story here: enterprise AI is finally maturing past the demo phase.
A few years ago, companies were excited about AI because it could write a press release in 12 seconds. Now? They’re asking: "Can it make my team better?" "Can it reduce turnover?" "Can it actually improve performance?"
Roleplay answers yes — because it’s not about generating content. It’s about generating change.
The Quiet Revolution in Soft Skills
Let’s be honest: soft skills training has always been the red-headed stepchild of corporate learning.
You can’t measure it easily. You can’t automate it without sounding like a robot. And most of it happens in the gaps — between meetings, during coffee breaks, in the hallway.
Roleplay doesn’t just digitize that. It systematizes it.
Imagine a manager who’s terrified of giving negative feedback. In the past, they’d avoid it. Or they’d do it poorly, and the employee would leave.
Now, they log into Roleplay. They practice with an avatar who plays the role of a frustrated direct report. The AI doesn’t flinch. It doesn’t say "I understand." It says, "You’ve been late on three deliverables this month. I’m not sure I can trust you anymore."
Then it scores them. On tone. On structure. On whether they offered a path forward.
That manager goes back to their real team — and does it better.
That’s the magic. Not the AI. Not the avatar. But the fact that someone finally built a tool that makes practice mandatory, not optional.
The Next Phase of Enterprise AI
Synthesia’s pivot signals something bigger: enterprise AI is moving from "can we" to "should we" to "does it work."
We’re done with shiny demos. We’re done with AI that just looks good on a slide deck.
The companies that win now are the ones that can prove ROI — not in clicks, but in behavior change.
Roleplay Sessions isn’t just a product. It’s a benchmark.
If your training platform doesn’t make people do something — not watch, not read, not click — then it’s not training. It’s entertainment.
And nobody’s paying for entertainment anymore.
Source
"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." — Victor Riparbelli, CEO, Synthesia
"If you have your entire sales team practice with an AI role player, you can get very granular data on how your sales force is doing overall."
"One of the top three companies by market cap in Europe, one of the top five Fortune 100, and one of the biggest recruitment companies in the world."
"Roleplay is the first release under a broader ‘Sessions’ platform Synthesia plans to expand into other formats, including job interviews and candidate screening."
"Synthesia argues that most corporate training — including, implicitly, its own core video product — stops short of actually changing behavior."
"The launch comes as enterprises take a harder look at whether their AI spend is paying off."
"By tacking on a layer that includes rubrics, performance data, and analytics, Synthesia is positioning itself less as an AI avatar company and more as a performance-management platform with a video front end."
"The two most popular use cases involve training sales teams and leadership — programs like practicing how to sell a product or have a difficult conversation."
"Roleplay is an enterprise offering for now, but the goal is to offer it more widely to small businesses, prosumers, and potentially educational institutions in the next few months as inference costs continue to fall."
"Riparbelli believes products like Roleplay represent the next phase of enterprise AI adoption, where companies care less about whether AI looks good in a social media demo and more about proving it generates measurable business outcomes."
Related Reading:
- Agentic SRE: Why Autonomy Needs Guardrails
- Human-in-the-Loop: The Secret to Scalable AI Operations
- Measuring Behavior Change in AI-Driven Learning
