Most individuals ignore corporate training films or don’t pay attention to the necessary ones. Kaltura, a video tech supplier, found that 75% of employees skim, view without sound, or multitask when watching training courses.
Since training films are expensive to develop, can they be made more engaging and less expensive? Colossyan co-founder and CEO Dominik Mate Kovacs believes GenAI is involved.
In order to create workplace learning movies, Colossyan uses AI to remix, re-animate, and edit footage of virtual avatars against different backgrounds. Colossyan’s text-to-speech (TTS) engine reads and interprets scripts into over 70 languages. 
“To generate a video with Colossyan’s AI video platform, all you have to do is input a script and select from a diverse range of avatars,” Kovacs emailed Eltrys. “Any company can efficiently make a video about almost anything without conventional filming resources.”
Kovacs left Defudger, a deepfake detection tool he co-founded, in 2020 to start Colossyan. GenAI’s growing business interest spurred Kovacs, an engineer and data scientist, to establish Colossyan.
Kovacs said companies are using AI in IT automation, customer care, and digital labor, demonstrating its broad application and promise to streamline operations and improve service delivery. Limited AI skills and data complexity are important but surmountable impediments to AI adoption that many firms are actively attempting to solve.
I used Colossyan’s free trial to see if I could construct a training film that would retain my ADHD brain’s attention, a difficult bar. The avatars were too rigid and cartoonish, and the TTS engine was overly robotic compared to other GenAI solutions like ElevenLabs. I’ve seen worse corporate videos.
Colossyan takes ~11 minutes to make a 38-second video, which is slower than expected. This is faster than building training from scratch. But if I had to make more than a few videos for any reason, I might use PowerPoint or Canva.
Naturally, I’m not Colossyan’s goal. Kovacs believes that Novartis, Porsche, Vodafone, HPE, and Paramount are willing to pay for Colossyan as it is.
Kovacs attributes client traction to features like learning management system connections and a “conversation mode” that lets two avatars talk. He acknowledges that CommonGround, Synthesia, Surge, and Microsoft solutions compete in the GenAI video area, but he believes Colossyan’s focus on “interactivity and engagement” will set it apart.
Perhaps he’s correct. Lakestar led a $22 million fundraising round for Colossyan, which also included Launchub, Day One Capital, and Emerge Education. Kovacs said Colossyan will triple its staff in New York, London, and Budapest and create new capabilities like branching films and knowledge tests with the funds.
“Our platform provides scalable, cost-effective training and development solutions for C-suite and IT department leaders,” he added.
