Tens of thousands in the British tech sector gathered at London’s ExCel Centre in April for the opening of Amazon’s AWS Summit, the tech giant’s biggest event outside the US. As delegates took their seats in the vast main hall, AWS’s Europe chief, Tanuja Randery, arrived on stage to begin her introductory remarks.
Or so everyone thought. In fact, as the real Tanuja would shortly confirm, the crowd had been watching an AI-generated video of her, put together with a few simple prompts. Amazon wanted to showcase the best-in-class technology that was being built on its cloud platform. The company chose an avatar made by Synthesia.
Fast-forward nine months and Synthesia has found itself the most valuable generative AI company in Britain, having secured a $2.1bn valuation following its £146m Series D round.
Founded in 2017 as a tool to create video presentations hosted by humanlike digital speakers, the London-based firm’s mind-blowing innovations have propelled it past rivals to reach the peak of Britain’s generative AI offering.
Synthesia Co-founder and CEO Victor Riparbelli believes part of its success is down to timing, telling UKTN it was “the first company to release AI avatars, so we’ve had a head start”.
As is the case for any AI business, the release of ChatGPT in 2022 was a landmark moment for Synthesia.
“We definitely saw a bump in interest once ChatGPT went mainstream,” Riparbelli said.
“But while people are willing to temporarily part with their money to experiment with new AI technologies, keeping them as long-term customers is a very different challenge.”
Synthesia believes it has built something that can last beyond the initial wave of AI hype and actually meet a market need.
“We’re very proud that we’ve not only gained new customers in the last two years, but we’ve also significantly expanded use cases with existing customers which means companies experience the value that Synthesia offers them.”
In 2024, Synthesia expanded its products to include an automated assistant to help with project creation and a text-to-video tool. Last year also saw the company unveil its expressive avatars, a belief-defying evolution of its AI speakers.
UKTN toured the East London studio in which Synthesia was developing these expressive avatars that can match the facial structure, body language and emotional intent of a real human speaker.
The company can now turn any willing participant into a digital presenter, though the process is a lot more manual than the world of automation would suggest.
Its position as a local leader in generative AI has also caught the eye of the government, which is betting big on the technology’s capacity to support its growth mission.
“This funding showcases the confidence investors have in British tech, especially following our newly announced blueprint for AI, and highlights the global leadership of UK-based companies in pioneering generative AI innovations,” Tech Secretary Peter Kyle said of the company’s Series D round.
“Synthesia’s success story underscores how the UK remains the ideal place for companies to grow, thrive and lead the next chapter of the digital revolution.”
If Labour intends growth to be the defining word for the current administration, Synthesia makes a good ambassadorial candidate.
In 2021, the company had an average monthly headcount of 16 people, a figure which has since rocketed by over 2,400% to more than 400.
Turnover growth has also been solid, tripling from £8.6m in 2022 to £25.7m the following year. The company now claims to have over one million users across 60,000 businesses, including more than 60% of Fortune 100 firms.
“There are many countries that want to become AI superpowers but few have a chance to actually succeed,” Riparbelli said.
The Synthesia boss said the UK is firmly in the top three of AI nations, thanks to its “combination of talent, capital and infrastructure” as well as a “pro-business environment”.
The recently released AI Opportunities Action Plan from the government has given the firm further confidence in its ability to thrive in London.
Despite this confidence in the UK, more than half of Synthesia’s annual revenue comes from US customers.
But Synthesia’s rapid raise has not been without controversy.
Just as conversations around the safety implications of generative AI were heating up, Synthesia faced a scandal that exemplified fears about how the technology could be misused.
In Spring 2023, a handful of online video news reports were circulating in Latin America. The videos, which appeared to be filmed in a professional news studio, featured statements of support for regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro.
They spoke of increased tourism in Venezuela, downplayed the issue of poverty and accused political opponents of Maduro of being involved in a major financial scandal.
“Venezuelans do not actually feel there is any opposition to the government,” said one of the ‘presenters’.”
Around the same time, videos of an American individual expressing support for Ibrahim Traoré – an African military officer who had months before seized control of Burkina Faso – were spread via Telegram.
To the company’s horror, it would later transpire that these videos were artificially generated using Synthesia.
The debacle was a grim demonstration of AI’s potential to impact democracy and became a make-or-break moment for Synthesia, which was already well on its way to the top of the British AI sector.
It was inevitable that technology capable of recreating professional human presentations would be used for disinformation: it was only ever a matter of time.
The scandal ultimately gave the company a perfect and high-profile chance to demonstrate how technology providers could prevent bad actors from misusing AI.
The videos were taken down and the company immediately banned the user who created them. Synthesia insisted that it has “strict guidelines for which type of content we allow to be created on our platform. We enforce our terms of service and ban users who breach them”.
The company picked up plenty of negative media coverage for facilitating authoritarian propaganda, but its application of swift justice and improved content moderation prevented any real damage from taking hold.
Having surpassed the $2bn valuation mark, the opportunities remain enormous for Synthesia — but the risks are also clear. Balancing the two looks set to be a high-wire act.
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