The majority of individuals tend to skim through or multitask while watching corporate training videos, as per a recent poll by Kaltura, a video tech provider. Recognizing that training videos can be costly to produce, Dominik Mate Kovacs, the co-founder and CEO of Colossyan, believes that there’s a way to make them more engaging and less of a financial burden through the use of GenAI.
Colossyan employs AI to create workplace learning videos by remixing, re-animating, and editing footage using virtual avatars against changeable backgrounds. Users can input a script to be “read” by Colossyan’s text-to-speech (TTS) engine, which can also translate the script into over 70 languages.
Image Credits: Colossyan
According to Kovacs, creating a video using Colossyan’s AI video platform only requires inputting a script and selecting from a diverse range of avatars. This enables any company to efficiently create videos on various topics without the need for conventional filming resources.
Kovacs established Colossyan in 2020 after departing from Defudger, a deepfakes detection platform that he helped co-launch. With a background in engineering and data science, Kovacs was inspired to start Colossyan due to the increasing corporate interest in GenAI.
He stated, “Enterprises are leveraging AI in diverse areas such as IT automation, customer care, and digital labor, highlighting the broad applicability and potential impact of AI technologies in streamlining operations and enhancing service delivery.” Kovacs also recognized the challenges of limited AI skills and data complexity as significant yet surmountable barriers to AI adoption.
I personally tested Colossyan’s platform, which offers a free trial, to see if I could create a training video that could hold my attention. While I found the avatars to be somewhat stiff and cartoonish and the TTS engine to be robotic compared to other GenAI tools, I’ve seen worse corporate videos.
However, Colossyan’s video generation process was not as quick as expected, taking approximately 11 minutes for a 38-second clip. Although this is faster than creating training videos from scratch, the process might still be time-consuming for creating multiple videos.
Despite not being the target market, Colossyan has found success with several well-known brands, including Novartis, Porsche, Vodafone, HPE, and Paramount, as subscribers. Kovacs attributed this customer traction to features such as integrations with learning management systems and a “conversation mode” that allows for dialogue between two avatars.
While acknowledging the competition in the GenAI video space, Kovacs believes that Colossyan’s focus on “interactivity and engagement” sets it apart. The company recently announced a $22 million funding round led by Lakestar, with plans to expand its team and develop new capabilities.
Kovacs emphasized that for C-suite and IT department leaders, Colossyan’s platform offers a scalable, cost-efficient solution to training and development challenges.
