HeyGen and Synthesia can turn a script into a presenter video in many languages. Here is where that works for training, what each plan gates, and what to settle on likeness first.
Nathan Vegh8 min read
Your induction video is four years old. The person in it has left, the software on screen has changed, and nobody wants to book a camera, a room and a Saturday to film it again. A new starter in another state needs the same video in a second language by Monday.
This is the job AI avatar video tools were built for. You write or paste a script, pick a presenter, and the tool produces a video of someone speaking it. Change a line and you regenerate. The harder questions are not about the technology. They are about where the result looks right, what the plans actually let you do, and whose face you are using.
This post compares two tools we list, HeyGen and Synthesia, and touches on VEED, Descript and ElevenLabs for the jobs they cover. It draws on our own reviews, the vendors' product and pricing pages, and Australian privacy guidance from the OAIC. Sources are listed at the end.
Quick answer: Use an avatar video tool for training, how-to and internal update videos where the script matters more than the screen presence: induction, process steps, policy changes, product walkthroughs. Pick Synthesia when the main audience is a team and you want the business controls (brand kits, collaboration, learning-system export, single sign-on on higher plans). Pick HeyGen when translation, or an avatar built from one person's own footage, matters more. Do not use either for a video where your own face and voice carry the trust, such as a founder message to customers. And settle consent, in writing, before any real person becomes an avatar.
Both vendors describe the same core use. HeyGen says you can build videos from text scripts, images, audio, or slide decks and PDFs. Synthesia says you can start from a script, a prompt, a document, a PowerPoint or a link. In practice that means:
It works least well where people expect warmth or authority from a specific person: sales videos from the owner, apology videos, anything where the viewer is meant to know the speaker. A stock presenter reading your script is not you. Say so in the video rather than hoping nobody asks.
HeyGen offers presenter avatars, avatars you create from your own footage, talking photos, and video translation that can keep the speaker's voice. Our review says it is good for talking-head and avatar videos, including translation into other languages.
Fits: a small team that wants to make a training video, then translate it for staff or customers who speak another language. It also fits a team that wants a custom avatar of one person, such as a trainer who is available for the recording once and never again.
The catch (from our review): the free plan is short and watermarked, and the premium avatar spends credits that do not roll over. The pricing page shows paid plans add a monthly credit allowance, longer videos, faster processing and watermark removal. Plan on testing a real script on the paid tier before you decide, because credits are spent by the feature, not by the video.
Skip if: you need long videos without a watermark on the free plan.
Synthesia is aimed squarely at business teams: learning and development, HR, sales enablement and IT. It offers stock avatars, personal avatars made from a photo or short video, brand kits, collaboration, and export formats for learning systems. Its pricing page says the top tier adds single sign-on and live team collaboration.
Fits: an organisation that makes a steady stream of training videos with several people involved, where brand consistency and an approval flow matter.
The catch (from our review): paid plans cap how many minutes of video you can make each month, and sources describe the usage limits in different ways. Check your plan's allowance against the number of videos you realistically make in a quarter, not a month. The vendor's pricing page also shows the free plan carries a watermark and does not include downloads, so you cannot use it to see how a finished video will look in your own systems.
Skip if: you need long videos, or no watermark, on the free plan.
This is the part people skip, and it is the part that can cause trouble later.
Both vendors say a custom or personal avatar needs the real person to consent on camera. HeyGen says identity verification is required and removal requests are honoured. Synthesia says each personal avatar needs a live, on-camera consent recording. That protects the vendor and the person from a stranger cloning a face. It does not answer the questions that are yours to answer:
The OAIC, Australia's privacy regulator, says the Privacy Act applies to AI use involving personal information, including artificially generated information such as deepfakes about an identifiable person. Its guidance also says to update your privacy policy and collection notices to explain AI use, to clearly identify public-facing AI so people know they are not dealing with a human, and to have internal AI policies. A face and voice are personal information. The rules differ by state and by situation, and this is not legal advice, so read the OAIC guidance and ask your adviser before you build an avatar of an employee or customer.
A simple, low-risk path: use a stock avatar for most videos, and make a custom one only for a person who has agreed in writing to a defined use, with an end date.
Avatar tools are one step in a video. VEED is a browser video editor with subtitles, avatars and dubbing, useful when the avatar video needs captions and a trim. Descript edits video by editing the transcript, which suits turning a recorded session into a cleaner one. ElevenLabs is for realistic voiceovers and voice cloning when you want audio over screen recordings and no presenter at all. Voice cloning raises the same consent questions as a cloned face, so the same written agreement applies.
Read on 16 October 2026: the HeyGen product page and pricing page; the Synthesia product page and pricing page; and the OAIC's guidance on privacy and the use of commercially available AI products (published October 2024, updated January 2025). Vendor figures such as language counts are the vendors' own claims.
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