A named consent rule governs who can become an avatar

The shot

Synthesia builds a digital-avatar video platform aimed squarely at corporate and training video, the kind of internal compliance, onboarding, and sales-enablement footage that rarely gets discussed as 'film' but is produced at high volume. Per its own about page, the company was founded in 2017 by researchers from Stanford, Cambridge, UCL, and TUM; this note treats its documentation as a living record, current as retrieved on 16 September 2026, rather than a single dated event.

What the documents show

The about page states the platform lets a customer 'create professional videos without mics, cameras, actors, or studios,' aimed at learning and development, sales enablement, HR, and compliance training. A separate custom avatar feature page documents the process for building an avatar of a real person: a 'personal avatar' requires the subject to 'record from your laptop or smartphone' and to 'record a consent video' before submission, with turnaround stated as one business day, while 'studio avatars' take one to seven working days depending on whether footage is self-shot or filmed in Synthesia's own studio. The company's Acceptable Use Policy states plainly: 'It is not possible to create avatars for anyone without the explicit consent of the person involved. This includes politicians and any celebrities, alive or deceased.' These are the company's own stated policies and process steps, not an independently audited record of every avatar created on the platform.

The workflow

As documented, producing a custom avatar starts with the subject recording both their likeness footage and a separate consent video, after which Synthesia turns that submission into a reusable avatar within the stated timelines; personal avatars additionally include automatic voice cloning in the policy's stated 29 languages. Once an avatar exists, the acceptable-use policy layers further restrictions onto how it can be used, distinguishing 'Stock Avatars' (generic, licensed by Synthesia) from 'Custom Avatars' built from a specific person, with different consent and approval requirements for paid advertising or media appearances for each category.

What the tool does not change

The policy's consent requirement is a stated rule enforced through the company's own submission and review process, not a technical guarantee that no video could be produced without it; the documents describe a policy, not a verification mechanism this note can independently confirm. The policy also prohibits impersonation 'intended to deceive' and bars using outputs as the 'sole or contributing basis' for employment or educational decisions, which keeps that judgment with a human reviewer rather than the avatar system.

• Does the specific use in front of you fall under Stock or Custom Avatar rules, which the policy treats differently?
• Has the documented consent-video step actually been completed for the person being represented?
• Is the output being used for a decision the policy states an avatar output cannot solely justify?

Synthesia's own documentation positions consent as a named precondition for building a custom avatar and states an explicit rule against avatars of celebrities or politicians without permission. Whether that rule holds in every case is not something these documents, alone, can verify; what they establish is the company's stated policy, in its own words.