Struggling with clunky production setups and marathon editing sessions? Synthesia AI is transforming traditional video editing by making video creation as easy as typing text into a document. It does this by overlaying several layers of AI to create a human-like video of an avatar saying your script. In this AI tool review, we’ll dive deep into this groundbreaking tool that’s turning text into publish-ready videos.
What is Synthesia?
Synthesia is an AI-driven video creation tool that empowers you to produce high-quality, engaging videos without expensive equipment or specialized skills. It takes a unique approach to create videos by way of generating AI avatars (synthetic people that are human-like) that appear to be speaking words that you give it from a video script.
Synthesia does this by doing multiple AI tasks at once:
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- Turning a supplied video script into an audio format using AI text-to-speech technology.
- Tailoring the AI voice generator to a specific language, accent, or dialect.
- Syncing that audio to an avatar’s facial expression and mouth movements.
- Rendering a final video that is ready to be used.
It has come up with one of the best platforms that does this, and we’ll take a deep dive into all of its features.
Synthesia Features
Synthesia might just be one of your new favorite AI tools if you want to supplement your video creation workflow. Its ability as a multimodel generative AI system means that Synthesia performs very well at a host of tasks. Some of its features include:
Dozens of AI Avatars
It offers a rich collection of over 150 visual AI avatars that bring a multicultural flair to your videos (with new avatars arriving each week). Synthesia also supports well over 120 languages, accents, and local dialects. With this amount of variety, it is very easy to create striking, original videos using your content.
Templates and Custom Backgrounds
There are tons of video templates that serve as a launchpad for professional and aesthetic starting points. The custom background feature is simple but lets you design with your brand’s colors.
Synthesia lets you convert PowerPoint files into a template by making each slide a background scene.
AI Translation
Synthesia is multilingual and lets you translate your video scripts directly inside the platform.
Media Library and Collaboration
Additionally, it has a cloud media library that saves all your most used images, videos, music, and font assets for creating videos.
Synthesia also has teams covered by supporting multiple users and robust sharing features. Your whole team can access previously created videos and help make your latest project.
Descript Integration
Descript, known for its AI-powered audio and video editing capabilities, can be linked with Synthesia to get the best of both worlds. This integration is useful for those who rely on Descript’s “Overdub” feature, which can clone your voice to use in Synthesia.
This is an excellent feature for those with significant branding built into your YouTube channel based on your personality. This integration lets you copy your voice and apply it to video scripts, effectively making it easier to make videos using your voice.
Synthesia’s API
The Synthesia API is a sophisticated interface for integrating data into an automated video creation workflow. For instance, you could set up a template with dynamic variables that will pull from data gathered via an API call.
This lets you create streamlined videos that you can use for personalization or other data-centered video use cases. This is a technical feature but a very interesting one nonetheless.
Synthesia AI Pricing
Synthesia offers a small range of pricing options designed to cater to various needs and budgets.
Here’s a closer look at what each tier provides:
Personal Plan
This plan offers 10 video minutes per month and access to text-to-video capabilities. It also supports over 120 languages but with fewer AI avatars available.
Best For:
Individual creators or small businesses who need to create professional videos but don’t require extensive resources. Since the video output is so limited, social media advertisers may be able to get the most out of the platform.
Cost: $30 per month
Enterprise Plans
The enterprise plan is designed for more extensive use and offers additional features tailored for larger teams and more complex projects. It increases limits for scenes per video (from 10 to 50), the number of AI avatars available (over 140+), and unlimited videos.
Best For:
Larger organizations or businesses with more extensive video creation needs.
Cost: Custom Pricing based on sales conversation
It’s worth noting that Synthesia’s pricing is considered to be on the higher end compared to other AI video makers. However, the platform does offer a free trial, allowing you to test its capabilities before committing to a paid plan.
Whether you’re a solo content creator or part of a larger team, Synthesia offers pricing options that can align with your needs. But keep in mind that premium features come at a premium price.
How to Create a Video in Synthesia
Getting started with a new video is easy. You can select your starting point after clicking the “New Video” button near the top right. You can start from a blank canvas, with AI, importing a PowerPoint, or from a template.
Starting from a template is likely the fastest way to create a video and is a good place for new users to start.
Any template can be used along with Synthesia’s AI tool to help create content for your video. By putting in some details, the platform will create a video script that you can directly edit.
Based on our prompts above, Synthesia created six scenes of AI-generated text. We can select our language and voice and also markup our script to help the AI understand how to say what we have down. The script is also editable, so you can fully change whatever needs to be said. There are various other settings that you can work on. Once done, click “Generate” to create your finalized video.
Our video ended up being just above one minute long. The rendering time for it said it would take about 15 minutes but ended up being closer to 9 minutes. Still, that felt long, but we can appreciate all the AI technology working to make this happen.
Once rendered, we have a few options. We can publish directly to a platform, download the video to our computer, download the transcripts, and a host of other things.
All in all, Synthesia created a very quick video script for us. It was, by and large, factual, though it needed tailoring to be useful. The template made creating the visuals of our video very easy. Finally, the AI voice and avatar were effortless to use, though the AI avatar doesn’t look quite as natural as we’d hoped.
Synthesia Pros and Cons
Synthesia is one of the better AI avatar video generators, but it is still worth looking at what it is good at versus what it may lack.
Pros
Synthesia’s user experience is intuitive and easy to navigate. This ease of use lets you focus on creating compelling videos.
The platform doesn’t skimp on quality either, delivering high-fidelity videos that captivate your audience and elevate your brand. Thanks to its cost-effective AI technology, you can produce videos faster and with fewer resources, saving time and money. It has a lot of versatility, whether you’re working on a corporate presentation or a social media ad. Synthesia’s range of customization options has got you covered.
And don’t forget its ability to support multiple languages and accents.
Cons
While Synthesia offers a decent selection of avatars and voices, the range may still fall short for those with particular branding needs. Minor hiccups in lip-syncing and pronunciation can also occur, slightly tarnishing the otherwise professional videos.
Then there’s the matter of cost. While the platform offers an introductory trial, unlocking its full potential will set you back. The personal tier would only be usable for one 10-minute video a month or multiple short videos, which is not a whole lot of content in some scenarios.
Synthesia Alternatives
Not every AI video platform goes the route of generating AI avatars. We’ll feature other AI video platforms that might interest you.
Descript
Synthesia and Descript both cater to content creators but differ in their specializations. Synthesia excels in AI-driven video creation, offering a rich array of AI avatars, customizable backgrounds, and multilingual capabilities. It’s the tool of choice for those aiming for high-quality videos without needing an entire production team.
Descript is a haven for video/audio editors, particularly podcasters. It specializes in editing and transcription services, featuring a unique “Overdub” function that allows text-based audio editing.
Both platforms share commonalities like text-to-speech features, ease of use, and a commitment to high-quality output.
FlexClip
Similarly, Synthesia and FlexClip both simplify the video creation process but prioritize different user needs. Synthesia is a powerhouse for AI-driven video functionalities, offering AI avatars and multilingual support for those seeking professional-grade videos.
FlexClip, on the other hand, is all about user experience, providing a straightforward platform ideal for beginners and small businesses. Both aim to make video creation accessible, but Synthesia leans into advanced AI Avatars, while FlexClip emphasizes AI voiceovers with stock images and videos. Both are very strong platforms, depending on what you need.
Other Alternatives
See our recommended lists for various AI video tools (plus some other useful tools for video production) that can skyrocket your productivity:
- Best AI Video Editors
- Our Favorite AI Video Generators
- Best AI Avatar Generators
- AI Music Generators
Synthesia Use Cases
Synthesia AI manifests its versatility across a wide range of use cases.
In marketing, its usefulness can be seen in crafting multilingual videos broadening brand reach globally. It could be helpful in any education or training sector by transforming mundane text instructions into interactive video experiences. Customer service can utilize Synthesia to personalize certain interactions through its API to create bespoke videos and possibly garner a higher NPS (net promoter score).
Synthesia AI’s versatility transcends ordinary video generation, making it valuable across varied sectors. Here are some industries that already utilize video and stand to benefit from an improved cost basis that generative AI affords:
- Marketing
- Training and Development
- Customer Service
- Language Learning
- Recruiting
- Compliance
- Education
- Human Resources
- Sales
- Product Development
- IT Operations
- Manufacturing
- Financial Services
- Medical and Healthcare
- Retail
Figuring out how to leverage emerging video technologies to reduce costs, production time, and time to market is a smart move. Synthesia and other AI video generators are poised to help you reach that goal.
Conclusion
We’ve seen how Synthesia AI allows users to create realistic videos using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence. It works very well with AI-generated voices and pretty well with its AI Avatar video personalities. As the technology becomes more mature, we anticipate that the avatar’s facial expressions and mouth movements will become more realistic.
Our verdict is that Synthesia AI is an impressive tool that can be used for education, entertainment, marketing, and simple storytelling. However, it is not perfect, requiring some tailoring for optimal results.
If you are curious about Synthesia AI and want to try it yourself, you should try the personal plan. You can also browse their gallery of examples and see what other users have created. We do think that the Enterprise plan is likely where the value is since it comes with unlimited video downloads, but the price may or may not make sense for you.
If you’ve enjoyed this Synthesia AI review, you may appreciate our analysis of other products, such as ChatGPT, Character AI, and Writesonic.
Looking for more tools, check out our ultimate collection of the best AI tools to boost productivity.
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