Synthesia avatars are a core part of your video creation toolkit. This guide covers how to choose the right avatar type, establish governance frameworks, manage consent and ownership, control access across workspaces, and manage the lifecycle of avatars in your organisation. Together, these practices ensure your avatars are used compliantly, consistently, and effectively across your team.
Avatar Types and Recommended Use
Stock Avatars
Stock Avatars
Pre-made professional avatars filmed in studio.
✅ Immediately available, high quality (4K), ideal for scalable content across languages. | ⚠️ Cannot be used for promotional content due to legal restrictions. |
Best for: High-volume, repeatable content
Use when you want to:
Rapidly create content across multiple languages and regions
Reduce reliance on specific individuals & represent multiple cultures
Deliver consistent, standardised messaging at scale
Common use cases: Global training programs, Prospecting and customer communications, Support and help-centre content
Synthetic Avatars
Synthetic Avatars
Fully AI-generated personas created from text descriptions.
✅ Completely customisable with no consent risks. | ⚠️ Can be used for promotional content. May have a less realistic appearance and limited video duration (~30 seconds). |
Studio Avatars (Custom)
Studio Avatars (Custom)
Highest quality custom avatars filmed professionally.
✅ Ideal for capturing expertise from senior leaders and SMEs. | ⚠️ Requires professional setup and has higher cost and longer turnaround |
Best for: SME content with a highly credible, authoritative presence
Use when you want to:
Capture deep expertise with a highly credible, authoritative presence
Scale knowledge from senior leaders or domain experts
Create consistent, high-quality training or enablement content
Common use cases: Product deep dives; Compliance / regulatory training or Leadership
Personal Avatars
Personal Avatars
Created from user's own footage or photo via webcam or phone.
✅ Free, quick to create, maintains authenticity and personal connection. | ⚠️ Quality varies based on recording environment. |
Best for: SME-driven, relationship-led content
Use when you want to:
Maintain a personal connection while increasing content output
Preserve an individual's voice and tone across multiple videos
Build trust with internal or external audiences
Common use cases: Sales enablement, Customer education or Internal knowledge sharing
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Develop Avatar Usage Recommendations
Work with your brand to decide which types of avatars and whose likeness you will use in your content. Choose avatars thoughtfully to match your audience. Consider the following factors to strengthen engagement:
Reflect your audience: Select avatars that represent the people you're speaking to.
Role & authority: Match avatars to their role in the content—leader, peer, expert, or narrator. Their presence should align with the credibility and responsibility the message requires. Studio and Personal avatars work especially well here.
Tone alignment: Match the avatar to the emotional intent of your message—whether formal, conversational, empathetic, instructional, or inspirational. Avatar appearances and voices vary in professionalism, age, and energy. Factor this into your choice.
Localisation: Consider adapting avatars for different regions or teams. This may include changing ethnicities or languages, but avoid stereotypes, tokenism, or visual assumptions. Ensure all avatar use aligns with respectful representation standards. Be mindful that voices vary in effectiveness across languages and the best voice for a language might not align with your preferred avatar.
Scripting Guardrails: Work to establish script standards for your content that ensure your avatars best meet the needs your audience. In addition, set standards for personal and studio avatars that protect against avatars delivering content that misrepresents individuals or roles.
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Establish Ownership and Consent
An avatar created from someone's face or voice is a biometric representation that carries legal and ethical implications. Clear ownership and consent frameworks protect both individuals and your organisation.
Explicit consent is required to create an avatar: No avatar is created without the individual's informed consent, including biometric consent process to ensure authenticity.
Define clear roles: Establish who is the Talent (individual whose face/voice is used), Owner (manages rights and permissions), User (creates videos with avatar), and Approver (reviews content before release).
User control: Individuals retain visibility and control over how their avatar is used, with option to review and revoke permissions at any time.
Right to removal: Honour takedown requests and follow procedures to deactivate or delete avatars upon request, in compliance with GDPR and privacy regulations.
📚 Check out our Moderation Policies to understand when Avatars can be used in video
Manage Avatar Access and Sharing
Avatar sharing enables teams to leverage the same talent across multiple creators without duplicating the avatar creation process. You can share avatars within a workspace or across workspaces.
Sharing gives other users access to an avatar, but does not transfer ownership. Only the avatar owner can revoke access or delete the avatar.
Within same workspace: Avatar owners can share Avatar ID and Voice ID directly with users by adding their email on the Avatar page.
Across workspaces: Request access through support@synthesia.io, providing Avatar IDs, Voice ID, written consent from avatar owner, recipient email, and workspace name.
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Manage Avatar Lifecycle and Depreciation
Avatars persist in your workspace unless explicitly deleted by the owner or administrator. Plan for avatar governance as your team and content library grow.
Deletion rights: Avatar owners have full control and can request their data be deleted from Synthesia at any time.
Avatar persistence: Avatars remain in company workspaces after a user leaves, unless deleted by user or administrator.
Administrator control: Workspace administrators can manage avatar permissions, distribution, and deletion within their environment.
Non-shared avatars: Other users cannot see or use non-shared avatars, but administrators can contact Support to transfer ownership.
Shared avatars: If avatar was shared with other users, they can continue using it to create new videos after original user leaves. Users have the ability to remove shared access to their avatar at any point in it’s lifecycle
Generated videos: All previously generated videos containing the avatar continue to exist, even if avatar is deleted.
Compliance: Follow GDPR and data protection regulations when handling avatar data and deletion requests.
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