Synthesia turns a written script into a video presented by an AI avatar, so you can make a training video, a product walkthrough, or an internal update without a camera or a studio. You type what the presenter should say, pick an avatar and a voice, arrange your scenes, and the platform renders the video. This guide walks through that process step by step.
1. What Is Synthesia and Who Is It For?
Synthesia is an AI video maker built around digital presenters. Instead of filming yourself, you choose a stock avatar, give it a script, and it speaks the words on screen with matching lip movement. It is most useful for employee onboarding, compliance training, product explainers, and short how-to videos — the kind of video where clear delivery matters more than cinematic footage. If you want to compare avatar tools before you commit, our guide on how to use HeyGen in 2026 covers another popular presenter-video tool with a similar workflow.
2. Create Your Free Account and Start a New Video
Go to the Synthesia website and choose the free way to get started. The free plan is reported to include a small monthly allowance of video minutes and a handful of stock avatars, with no credit card required to try it. Once you are in, start a new video from a template or a blank project. Templates are faster for a first video: pick one made for training, marketing, or a product demo, then replace its placeholder text with your own.
3. Pick an Avatar, Language and Voice
Your avatar is the face of the video, so choose one that fits your audience — a friendly presenter for a welcome video, a more formal one for compliance training. Synthesia offers a large library of stock avatars, and paid plans add a custom avatar option, which should only ever be created with that person's clear consent. Next, set the language and preview the voice: Synthesia supports well over 100 languages and accents, so one script idea can reach teams in different countries.
4. Write a Script That Sounds Natural
Avatar voices read exactly what you write, so write the way people speak. Keep sentences short, one idea per sentence, and read the script aloud yourself before you paste it in. For example, write "Click New project. Choose Customer onboarding. Then select Create." rather than one long, tangled instruction. Split the script into scenes of roughly one message each — a 90-second walkthrough works well as about six short scenes — and put the most important point first, since viewers decide quickly whether to keep watching. Avoid jargon unless your audience genuinely uses it, and double-check names, product terms, and numbers, because fixing a typo after generation costs you another render.
5. Design Scenes, Add Media and Brand Touches
Each scene is a slide with its own script segment, avatar, and visuals. Use the scene timeline to add, remove, or reorder scenes, and keep one visual job per scene: a headline, a short bullet list, or a screen recording that shows the exact click. You can upload your own images or video and add your logo and brand colours. If you later want to polish the result, our guide on how to use CapCut in 2026 shows how to trim and caption a finished video, while our guide on how to use Descript in 2026 covers editing video by editing its transcript.
6. Preview, Generate and Share — Plus Beginner Mistakes to Avoid
Always preview the full video before you generate it. Check the opening hook, the spelling of every name, whether captions are readable, and whether the final call to action is clear. Short videos typically take a few minutes to generate, so treat previewing as the cheap fix and generating as the expensive one. When you are happy, generate, then download the MP4, share a link, or embed it where your audience already works. The three mistakes beginners make most are: writing one giant scene instead of short scenes, skipping the preview and burning credits on a typo, and generating before the script is final. For a wider look at other options, see our roundup of the best free AI video generators in 2026.
Synthesia is at its best when you keep the job small: one clear message, one friendly presenter, short scenes, and a full preview before you generate. Start free, make one short video this week, and judge it on whether a real viewer understood it — not on how fancy it looks. Have you tried making an avatar video yet, and what would your first one explain? Tell us in the comments.
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