​Synthesia launches talent experience program to learn from and reward the exceptional actors behind its stock avatars

Organizations around the world, from small businesses to large companies, use our AI video platform to create and distribute instructional and informational videos with ease. These videos are made with the help of AI avatars, digital humans that act as virtual presenters conveying information in a more engaging way compared to equivalent text-based solutions. 

For the past four years, we’ve offered a library of diverse stock avatars which businesses can choose to include in the videos made on our platform. These stock avatars are brought to life using performances of paid actors, who license their likeness for a period of three years in return for a flat fee.

While we believe our current approach to compensation is in line with best practices emerging in our field and will continue to be appropriate and equitable for most engagements, some of  our actors have become uniquely integral to our community and platform over time. 

To acknowledge their impact and to forge even deeper relationships, we are excited to announce the formation of a talent experience program along with an equity fund to grant participating actors a stake in our company's future.

Introducing Synthesia’s talent experience program

The newly established talent experience program will serve as a channel to gather feedback, share insights, and collaborate on initiatives to further cultivate fair, transparent, and sustainable practices in our business. 

By involving actors in decision-making processes, we aim to create a culture of mutual respect and continuous improvement.

Here is the reaction from three of the actors that are joining the program and Gingersnap Models, an agency that represents some of the actors we work with: 

Gingersnap has collaborated with Synthesia for five years, providing actors to create high quality avatars for their platform. Synthesia has revolutionized communication by venturing into uncharted territory where technology meets the future. This innovation has unlocked new job opportunities for talent—roles that wouldn’t have existed without Synthesia. At Gingersnap, we embrace the exciting possibilities AI brings to our industry, creating fresh and dynamic opportunities for our talent. - Clare Wilson, director at Gingersnap Models

The program has also attracted support from Cara Hunter, an MLA in Northern Ireland who was the victim of a non-consensual deepfake as she campaigned for elected office: 

As an elected politician who was sadly the victim of a deepfake video in my election in 2022, today’s announcement showcases Synthesia’s ongoing commitment to lead globally on AI ethics and tech for good. I particularly welcome their recent policies which clearly define robust content moderation to prevent misuse and integrating actors into the decision making process. 
Through their strict content moderation policies to prevent abusive, misleading, or harmful use of avatars, Synthesia continues to showcase its dedication to pioneering AI advancement while protecting talent.

An equity fund for our exceptional actors

We believe that the actors who participate in this program to help drive the success of our community and platform should in turn share in our growth and achievement. So to start, we are creating a pool of our company shares worth $1,000,000, in order to grant options to select actors whose stock avatars have been popular with our customers or have been featured in our marketing campaigns. 

These actors will be part of the program for up to four years, during which their equity awards will vest monthly.

Continued focus on AI video for corporate and enterprise use, rather than entertainment

We believe our continued focus on enterprise use cases, rather than on consumer and entertainment segments, will open up new channels and opportunities for our actors, rather than cannibalizing traditional ones.

For example, our customers predominantly use our platform for corporate communications, employee training and learning, customer support, and other knowledge-sharing activities. While these customers are creating  dynamic and high-quality videos in order to drive solutions for their businesses, we have no plans to build consumer-focused tools or work with the film and entertainment sector to create entertainment content or cinematic productions. 

And because we operate at the intersection of generative AI and enterprise communications for some of the world’s largest brands, we believe that the stakes are higher compared to traditional software vendors when it comes to trust and safety. 

Therefore, we’ve built in enterprise-grade security features so that we minimize abuse and protect the talent we work with, our users, and the general public from harmful content.

Here are just a few of these measures: 

1. Restrictions on use in paid advertisements: To protect the integrity of our talent's likenesses, we prohibit the use of stock avatars in content for promoted, boosted, or paid advertising on social media or similar online media platforms. We also don’t allow the use of our platform to create content displayed in broadcast media without a separate and additional release. This ensures that our talent’s likenesses are not exploited for direct commercial gain in promotional media, unlike traditional on-screen endorsements or commercial ads.
2. A commitment to responsible AI development: As a UK-based company and a global leader in generative AI, Synthesia abides by the relevant regulations in the markets we operate in, including North America and Europe. These regions have set high standards for data protection, responsible AI development, and fair labor practices. Unlike some competitors headquartered in less regulated regions, we are committed to responsible AI development and adhere to published best practices to help ensure our talent’s rights, including moral and publicity rights, are respected.
3. Empowering talent with opt-out controls: We provide our talent with the ability to opt out of our platform at any point if they no longer wish for their corresponding stock avatar to be used in new videos. Our agreements are designed to ensure transparency around usage rights, fair compensation, and control. When an actor chooses to opt out, we delete their avatars from our platform, ensuring compliance with our contracts and respecting the wishes of our talent.
4. Robust content moderation to prevent misuse: Synthesia has strict content moderation policies to prevent abusive, misleading, or harmful use of avatars. We are the only enterprise-focused AI video platform to proactively monitor and extensively prevent the generation of harmful content. Our policies clearly define how users could violate our comprehensive guidelines, ensuring our talent’s likenesses are not used inappropriately. Our customers must agree to strict usage terms that prohibit harmful or exploitative content.

Through the establishment of this program and the launch of our equity program, we want to show our appreciation to our talent community. 

We believe that by working together and recognizing the contributions of the creative industry, we can continue to innovate and provide great value to our users while upholding the highest standards of fairness, transparency, and responsibility.