Creative Reality Studio

Understanding Talking Avatars and Digital Human Assistant Technology

At the forefront of animated AI video creation are talking avatars and digital human assistants that leverage AI to bring virtual assistants to life. With this technology, brands can create animated videos featuring human-like avatars or assistants that engage audiences through realistic facial expressions, gestures, and speech. This revolutionary technology opens up new possibilities for product marketing and even customer service, allowing brands to deliver compelling narratives and showcase key product or service features in an immersive and memorable way.

Animating and Producing Your AI Video

Defining Your Product Promotion Goals

Before diving into the creation process, it’s essential to define your product promotion goals clearly. Whether you’re looking to increase brand awareness, drive sales, provide customer service, or educate potential customers about your product’s features, having a clear objective will guide the direction of your animated AI video campaign. Understanding your target audience and their preferences is also crucial, as it will shape the content and messaging of your video to resonate with potential customers effectively.

Scripting Your Animated AI Video

Crafting a compelling narrative is paramount to the success of your animated AI video. Begin by outlining the key points you want to convey about your product and structuring them into a cohesive storyline. Write engaging dialogue for your digital human characters that highlights the benefits and unique selling points of your product while maintaining a conversational tone. Don’t forget to incorporate clear calls to action to encourage viewers to take the next step, whether it’s visiting your website, making a purchase, or subscribing to your newsletter.

Designing Your Talking Avatar

Choosing the right AI Avatar is essential to effectively communicate your brand’s message and resonate with your target audience. Whether you opt for human-like avatars or more stylized characters, ensure they align with your brand identity and appeal to your target demographic. Customize their appearance and personality to reflect the tone and style of your brand, creating a cohesive and memorable visual experience for viewers.

Selecting the Perfect Backgrounds and Settings

The backdrop and setting of your animated AI video play a crucial role in setting the mood and enhancing the overall presentation of your product. Create immersive environments that complement your product’s features and resonate with your target audience. Additionally, consider using background music and sound effects to evoke emotion and create a memorable viewing experience.

Leveraging AI Video Creator Tools

Leveraging AI video creator tools can streamline the production process and ensure professional results when bringing your animated AI video to life. Explore AI video creator platforms that offer advanced features and capabilities tailored to animated video production, such as Studio integrations. Familiarize yourself with the tools and techniques available, and experiment with different features to find what works best for your project.

Bringing Your Script to Life with Animation

With your script and characters in place, it’s time to animate your AI avatar video. Focus on conveying emotion and expression through your characters’ movements and gestures, making them feel lifelike and engaging. 

Before deploying your animated AI video, it’s essential to test it with focus groups or test audiences to gather feedback and identify areas for improvement. Analyze viewer engagement metrics to gain insights into how your video resonates with your target audience and iterate on your animation based on this feedback. By continuously refining your video based on feedback and data insights, you can ensure it effectively communicates your product’s value proposition and drives meaningful engagement with viewers.

How AI Lip‑Sync and Talking Avatars Improve Storytelling

In digital storytelling, realism and emotional connection are crucial. AI-driven lip-sync and talking avatar technology significantly enhance these elements, making animated characters more relatable and engaging. By synchronizing mouth movements precisely with spoken words, AI lip-sync tools create lifelike talking avatars that convey emotion and authenticity, dramatically enhancing viewer engagement and immersion.

Effective storytelling hinges on believable characters. AI lip-sync technology achieves this by meticulously aligning the avatar’s facial movements with the script’s spoken words, capturing nuances like pauses, emphasis, and emotion. This synchronization eliminates distractions and enables audiences to focus entirely on the message, deepening their connection to the content.

Beyond realism, these AI-powered avatars also elevate narrative delivery. Animated characters with accurate lip movements can emphasize key points, express enthusiasm or concern, and mirror human interactions more naturally. For instance, a virtual host in a brand’s explainer video can articulate complex ideas with clarity, significantly improving audience comprehension and retention.

Talking avatars powered by AI technology further contribute to memorable storytelling through enhanced emotional expression. Unlike traditional animation, AI avatars can dynamically adjust their facial expressions and gestures based on real-time input or script analysis, delivering content that resonates on a personal level. This emotional authenticity significantly improves brand recall, ensuring that the message stays with viewers long after the interaction ends.

Interactive storytelling is another area where AI avatars shine. These characters can respond to audience input in real-time, creating personalized, engaging experiences that static content cannot match. For example, interactive marketing campaigns leveraging AI talking avatars can adapt their dialogue and expressions based on viewer responses, creating immersive, tailored experiences that drive higher engagement rates and deeper brand affinity.

Practical examples underscore the value of AI talking avatars in storytelling. Testimonials and customer stories presented through realistic video avatars offer a more compelling and trustworthy narrative. Interactive ads featuring AI avatars invite audiences into dynamic conversations, significantly boosting participation and conversion rates compared to static ads.

By harnessing the capabilities of AI lip-sync and talking avatars, brands can craft storytelling experiences that captivate audiences, build emotional connections, and enhance overall content effectiveness. This technological advancement transforms passive viewing into active engagement, empowering marketers and content creators to deliver more impactful narratives.

Deploying and Promoting Your Animated AI Video

Once you’re satisfied with the final version of your animated AI video, it’s time to deploy and promote it to your target audience. Based on where your audience is most active, choose the right platforms for distribution, such as social media channels, email campaigns, or your website. Develop a comprehensive promotion strategy that leverages targeted advertising, influencer partnerships, and organic outreach to maximize reach and engagement. Monitor performance metrics closely and adjust your strategy to optimize results and achieve your product promotion goals.

Creating animated AI videos with the Studio offers brands a powerful tool for promoting their products and connecting with consumers meaningfully. By understanding the technology, defining clear objectives, and crafting compelling narratives, brands can leverage animated AI videos to drive engagement, increase brand awareness, and ultimately drive sales. With the right approach and execution, D-ID’s platform can revolutionize your product promotion efforts and elevate your brand to new heights of success.

The post Creating Animated AI Videos with Conversational Avatars appeared first on D-ID.

What is Learning and Development?

Most simply put, Learning and Development (L&D) is the process of helping people acquire the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to perform their jobs effectively. L&D can take many forms, but one of the most common methods is employee training videos.

The Use of Video in Training Programs is on the Rise

The use of video for employee training in L&D is becoming more and more popular. And it’s no wonder why. Videos are a great way to provide engaging and interactive content that can be easily accessed by learners at any time in their training programs.

Video is now a normal aspect of training and development programs.

Not only that, but videos can also be used to create a more personal learning experience by featuring faces and voices of instructors and other real people. This can help to create a connection with learners and make the content more relatable.

The 2025 Shift: AI Avatars and Emotionally-Aware Training Content

In 2025, AI-powered training videos are becoming central to scalable, personalized learning. Thanks to AI avatars, companies no longer have to rely solely on live actors or limited video production budgets to deliver emotionally intelligent instruction. Instead, trainers can generate video lessons that feel personal — using realistic digital presenters that speak directly to learners.

These AI avatars offer the best of both worlds: a humanlike presence with facial expressions, tone variation, and eye contact — without the high cost or logistical barriers of traditional filming. This unlocks a new level of flexibility in L&D strategies, allowing teams to easily localize training across languages and geographies.

Moreover, technologies like facial recognition are being integrated into modern L&D platforms to track engagement and comprehension in real time. This data-driven feedback loop enables course designers to refine learning experiences in real-time, identifying moments of confusion or disengagement and addressing them with targeted content.

By combining the innate emotional power of the human face with the agility and scale of AI-powered training videos, organizations are delivering content that doesn’t just inform — it sticks. Learners are more likely to retain knowledge, feel motivated, and apply what they’ve learned when they feel personally addressed and emotionally connected.

This year, more learning teams are embedding face-forward content into microlearning modules, onboarding sequences, and compliance refreshers. And it’s working: employee feedback consistently shows higher satisfaction and completion rates when AI avatars are used.

The Power of Presence

People need people. This is a scientific fact, not just the inspiration for sentimental songs and new-age discourse.

As noted by Emiliana Simon-Thomas, PhD, the Science Director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, “human beings are an ultra-social species — and our nervous systems expect to have others around us”. We are designed to need the presence of other humans.

And being in each other’s presence, whether ‘live’ or virtually, doesn’t only make us feel more at ease, and even healthier in both body and mind, it also helps us learn better.

This is where instructor-led learning videos come into play. Simply put, and true to its name, ‘instructor-led’ learning videos are those that feature an instructor who delivers information to learners.

“Human beings are an ultra-social species — and our nervous systems expect to have others around us”

Emiliana Simon-Thomas, PhD, Science Director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley

Having the presence of a human instructor in a training and development program is very important for assuring employee engagement and, ultimately, its efficacy. This can be seen in the fact that instructor-led videos are among the most common types of training videos that are found in online learning programs.

Focus on the Face

But it’s not just about the person’s presence. It’s also about their face.

And the power of having people present in video content, with a focus on the human face, has long been recognized by the marketing and advertising industry.

In fact, it’s been shown that ads that feature a person’s face get nearly 92% more attention than those that don’t.

We crave connection. We are drawn to people’s faces, their eyes, and their smiles. So, just as advertising that is face-centric is more engaging and impactful, so is a face-centric employee development learning video.

The Innate Lure of the Human Face

One of the primary reasons that the human face is so essential to learning engagement is that it’s “one of the richest and most powerful tools in social communication,” according to Rachael E. Jack and Philippe G. Schyns, from the School of Psychology and the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, both at Scotland’s University of Glasgow.

Faces capture our attention automatically. Even as babies, we process faces long before we recognize other objects. This was demonstrated by a study conducted at the Stanford Vision and NeuroDevelopment Lab, in which the university’s psychology researchers used brain-monitoring technology to determine that infant brains respond to faces just as those of adults, even when the rest of the infant visual system lags.

Evidence shows we process faces long before we recognize other objects

Scientists Agree

In another study, also conducted at Stanford University, researchers sought to determine the importance of the instructor’s face in engaging viewers of person-led learning videos.

From the evidence gathered in two large-scale field studies, researchers found that online learners participating in development programs who saw the instructor’s face reported having a better and more effective learning experience than those who did not.

They also noted that constantly presenting the instructor’s face actually enhanced learning and motivation.

Moreover, learners surveyed for the study expressed a strong preference for instruction with a human face, claiming that it was easier to follow a training video and pay attention to the content being delivered when a human face was presenting it.

The Benefits of a Human Face in L&D Videos

Faces create more employee engagement because they are:

1. The center of emotional communication

2. A source of personal connection

3. Attention-grabbing

4. A vehicle for non-verbal communication

When training and development programs are instructor-led and focus on the instructor’s face, learners are more engaged and report having a more memorable and effective learning experience.

After all, as it has been said many times before, there is really nothing more engaging than the human face, and how this truth can benefit your employee training, learning, and development videos.

How D-ID Can Help

From all this evidence, it’s obvious that the human face is essential to creating employee training and development programs that are more engaging and effective.

D-ID can help anyone in the organization produce such compelling people-led, face-centric learning videos easily, quickly, and cost-efficiently.

We empower corporate employee training and development teams to create learning videos that feature the human face, for more effective learning videos, and all with a simple click of a button.

Our offering is an AI-based solution that takes your script and turns it into high-quality, realistic videos. Output as many videos as you need, simply and quickly.

Whether it’s soft skills, leadership skills, onboarding, regulatory or compliance training, we can help you build a training and development program that puts people at the heart of employee development.

And with the human face at the center of your employee training video, you will get higher than ever levels of engagement, effectiveness and memorability.

The bottom line is that the human face is essential for more engaging, memorable, and effective learning videos. L&D professionals seeking to bridge skill gaps in their training and development programs should consider this when creating their next instructional video project.

To learn how you can create person-led videos that maximize learning by leveraging the engagement value of the human face, click here.

The post Why the Human Face is Essential for More Engaging, Memorable and Effective Training Courses in 2025 appeared first on D-ID.

Picture this: you’re working on a new design project, and you’ve got this wild idea. You want to create an avatar that not only looks like it could walk off the screen, but can also speak multiple languages, embodying the spirit of your project or brand. Sounds like sci-fi, right? But with D-ID’s Creative Reality Studio, now integrated into Canva’s design platform, it’s a reality.

Anwar Haneef, GM & Head of Ecosystem at Canva, put it brilliantly when he said, “With D-ID’s AI text-to-video app in Canva, you can now create AI video content in multiple languages without the need for multiple video recordings or retakes.”

But here’s the thing, this isn’t just some fancy, high-tech feature. It’s a practical, real-world solution that addresses the everyday challenges creators face. Language barriers? Poof! Gone. Time-consuming video recordings? A thing of the past. The AI avatars from D-ID streamline the entire process, helping you communicate your message more effectively and creatively.

And guess what? These avatars are available across most of Canva’s templates and can speak a whopping 120 languages. Talk about a global connection! Whether you’re a small business owner looking to reach an international audience, an educator crafting engaging material for your students, or a digital artist pushing the boundaries of your work, D-ID’s AI-powered avatars are the secret ingredient you didn’t know you needed.

We live in a world where it seems like everyone’s shouting into a megaphone, trying to be heard above the noise. The AI-powered avatars from D-ID give users a chance to do something different, something unique. They offer a new way for them to express their ideas, engage their audiences, and bring their designs to life.

So why not kick your creativity up a notch? Dive headfirst into the world of AI avatars on Canva and discover the magic that awaits. Happy designing, everyone!

The post Elevate Your Canva Designs to New Heights with D-ID’s AI Avatars appeared first on D-ID.

Going to these events, whether streaming, on demand, or live – is always enriching, instructive, and inspiring. That’s why it’s important for your development team to know what our industry has to offer, and which events they should consider attending.

After all, this is the best way to hear about new and evolving trends and best practices, in talent enrichment, employee engagement, virtual classrooms, and professional development. It is also a wonderful way to get insights from experts, learn from real-life case studies, and network with peers.

After all, better learning means better business performance and means your company will be more likely to hit its key performance indicators.

To help you make the decision about which events to attend, we’ve compiled a list of the top 13 learning and development meetups coming up over the next 12 months.

TechLearn Austin

TechLearn, where “technology empowers learning,” presents L&D professionals with content and insights about how to best leverage the latest in learning and training technologies and engaging with employees.

The event is comprised of keynote speeches, a ‘training tech kitchen’ – where attendees rotate among 10 tables with demos and treats, breakout sessions and a mixer event. Conference topics include e-learning, the virtual classroom, compliance training, professional development, augmented reality, and more.

The event is tailored for professionals in the domains of training, learning, and performance from both the public and private sectors, as well as CLOs, L&D practitioners and leaders, and anyone who’s charged with leveraging online learning technologies to drive workplace performance and increase personal skills.

To learn more, click here.

World of Learning

Birmingham, UK, October 11-12, 2022The World of Learning conference and exhibition is an event that delivers thought leadership insights, as well as networking opportunities, and inspiration for learning and development professionals.The conference features speakers who are among the industry’s leading thinkers and practitioners, who come to share case studies and lead interactive seminars and discussion forums.Moreover, the exhibition showcases a wide range of solutions for the virtual classroom, learning management, experiential learning, lifelong learning, safety training and more.To learn more, click here.

Training Industry Conference & Expo (TICE)

The Training Industry Conference & Expo (TICE) is an online event focused on delivering insights into leadership development in the domain of corporate learning and development.

The event provides an interactive experience, enables networking opportunities with company professionals dedicated to developing learning programs around talent development, and offers ideas and solutions for advancing a career in learning and hitting your business goals.

There are multiple tracks and over 25 breakout sessions that offer valuable insights, live product demonstrations of the latest adaptive learning solutions, roundtable discussions, and a virtual expo hall aimed at the learning function.

To learn more, click here.

DevLearn

The mission of DevLearn is to “unearth the future of learning and technology,” while focusing on innovative thinking and emerging technologies in learning and development.

Attending this event provides participants an opportunity to see where the industry is headed, discover best practices for enhancing everyday work, and learn about strategies for personal development.

The lineup of keynote speakers and topics is impressive, including “The Future Of The Mind” with Michio Kaku, renowned physicist and co-founder of string theory, and the program covers a wide range of engaging topics aimed at different business units, such as AR and VR, data and measurement, emerging tech, video and media, project management and more.

To learn more, click here or stop by and meet us at Booth 1322!

Web Summit

Forbes calls it “the best technology conference on the planet,” and in November it will bring together more than 70,000 people to experience first-hand the companies, business leaders and offerings which are redefining the tech industry.

The event offers educational content, informative masterclasses, and roundtables that endow participants with valuable skills that they can take back for immediate implementation during their day-to-day.

Web Summit has 26 tracks, which cover 30 tech topics, including AI and machine learning, content creation, education, human resources and recruitment and much more.

To learn more, click here.

OEB

Now in its 28th year, OEB attracts a wide range of attendees from global enterprises, SMEs, higher education, and more. The conference program is designed to present and discuss how technology opportunities and challenges are transforming the world of learning.

There is an exhibition, keynote plenaries from world-class speakers, and networking opportunities, each aimed at creating a better digital learning world.

Among the topics covered are learning design for talent development, online teaching/learning, L&D capability and leadership, using learning technologies to structure the learning experience, making decisions with data, initiating and implementing digital transformation, and more.

To learn more, click here or stop by and meet us at Booth D40!

Training 2023 Conference & Expo

Training magazine’s Training Conference & Expo has been bringing together learning experts and professionals from multiple industries and experience levels for 45 years.

This is a train-the-trainer conference with a trainer certificate program that enhances the L&D professional’s career. Attendees from every business unit, including training directors and managers, chief learning officers, learning directors and managers, e-learning managers, designers, developers, business leaders and more.

To learn more, click here.

People Development Summit

Barcelona, Spain, March 8-10, 2023PDS is an exclusive gathering of senior L&D decision-makers who come together live in person to discuss and uncover the best solutions for achieving learning and development goals.The event features 40 L&D solution providers including innovators in learning technology and leadership and talent development programs. Among the attendees are 80 senior L&D professionals representing development teams from top corporations from the UK and Ireland.The benefits of attending include gaining insights on the future of work, virtual training, driving inclusive culture and more.To learn more, click here.

ASU GSV Summit

This annual summit is produced by Arizona State University (ASU) and Global Silicon Valley (GSV). Its objective is to bring learning professionals together to collaborate on the training programs and learning/work transformation that will give everyone equal access to the future.

The event attracts top-tier speakers, such as Barack Obama, the 44th President Of The United States, Sandra Day O’Connor, former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States, Bill Nye, renowned scientist, inventor, and television personality, Gloria Steinem, writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer, and many more.

To learn more, click here.

Learning Technologies

With more than 9,000 visitors, 200 free L&D seminars, and over 200 exhibitors, Learning Technologies is one of the biggest workplace-learning exhibitions in Europe.

At the upcoming event, there will be 90 speakers presenting at over 30 conference sessions, covering topics such as AI, data, and analytics, tools and technologies – which are actually being used, who is using them and what can we learn from them, and more. In addition, there will be collaborative sessions that are designed for interaction, and an exhibition that will showcase the latest technologies, learning solutions, training programs and other best practices.

To learn more, click here.

ATD

San Diego, California, May 21-24, 2023 ATD is the largest organization for corporate training and learning development in the US. They hold several conferences throughout the entire year and this one is considered to be its biggest.The event is relevant for new and veteran L&D practitioners alike, certified TD professionals, team leaders, chief talent officers, and more. The learning tracks include career development, future readiness, instructional design, leadership development, learning technologies, training programs, talent strategy and change management.ATD also claims to have the largest training products expo in the industry, featuring a broad variety of solutions, services, and techniques.To learn more, click here.

CIPD Festival Of Work

London, UK, June 7-8, 2023The Festival of Work is an event focused on topics such as employee engagement and wellbeing, and learning, development, and skills.At the event, industry thought leaders present the latest innovations, case studies, research, and strategies for succeeding in the future world of work.Attendees get insights on how to make learning part of the organization’s DNA, and how they can create training programs and an environment that works better for people and the business.To learn more, click here.

EduLearn

The 15th annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies provides knowledge on how technology is influencing the learning and teaching experience and how education is changing in the world and developing talent.

Among the program’s topics are innovations in education, curriculum design and development, career development and training, project outcomes and conclusions, collaborative virtual environments (CVEs), e-learning, emerging technologies, and more.

To learn more, click here.

See you there!

We’re very excited about the insights, engagement, and experiences that await attendees at these events.

Create Training Videos Using D-ID

We’re also looking forward to attending some in-person to present our solution, which empowers learning and development teams and other business units to create cutting-edge, engaging, compelling, and effective learning and training videos at the click of a button and a fraction of the cost – boosting business performance.

The D-ID offering is an AI-based solution that takes images of faces and turns them into high-quality, realistic videos. It turns a single photo of a person into as many learning and training videos as you need, without having to engage with the typical (costly) production process.

This way, anyone in L&D can create and update video content, as often as they want, in less time, and at a lower cost and effort than ever.

If you want to hear more, be sure to come and meet us in person at:

• DevLearn, booth # 1322
• OEB, booth #D40

Looking forward to seeing you there!

In the meantime, to learn more about how you can create as many learning and development videos as you want and need, at the click of a button and a fraction of the cost, here.

The post The Top 13 Learning & Development Events in 2022 and 2023 appeared first on D-ID.

Executive Summary

Key trends in the modern workplace, post-Covid are placing great demands on Learning & Development, and adding effective training video to your training program is the key to overcoming them.

Global workplace trends

• Remote & hybrid work model
• The skills gap is greater than ever
• Continuous introduction of new rules and regulations

Demands on L&D

• Online learning must be accessible to every employee everywhere.
• New learning materials must be engaging to generate comprehension and retention.
• Large volumes of new learning content must be continually produced.

Training video is supremely placed to address these needs because:

• As a digital medium it is inherently designed for easy and long-reaching distribution.
• It far outperforms text and images for capturing and keeping the attention of learners.

And when training video is instructor-led, the learner is all the more engaged.

Yet, with all the benefits, it has been difficult for L&D to produce their own training videos cost-effectively and at scale. Moreover, recruiting employees from within the organization to be the face of talking-head training video can be very challenging.

In this post, we’re going to take a closer look at some of L&D’s toughest challenges today, how video can help them address these challenges, and how D-ID enables the production of talking-head learning and corporate training videos without all the time, cost, and effort that come with video production, benefiting employee development, and making for effective training programs.

Global trends impacting the workplace

Around the world, many people are  finally taking a deep sigh of relief and cautiously entering the (mostly) post-Covid era.

Yet, the impact of the pandemic will still be felt across so many different areas of our lives, for a long time to come.

The world of work is one such domain. Among the key new-normal trends that we are seeing in the global workplace are:

The extensive transition to a remote and hybrid work model

To illustrate, many Fortune 100 companies including Fujitsu, Cisco, and PwC have implemented a remote first policy. As for employees, they’re all in. According to recent research, 97% say that they want to continue to work remotely, at least some of the time.

A skills gap that has never been greater

In a survey by McKinsey, 87% of executives reported to be experiencing or are expecting to experience a skills gap in their workforce. And according to the World Economic Forum (WEF) half of all employees worldwide will need to be reskilled by 2025.

The continuous introduction of new rules and regulations

Many industries are profoundly challenged by the ongoing development of new rules and regulations that demand strict adherence to avoid regulatory fines or other non-compliance penalties.

The implication for L&D

What this new world of work means for the organization’s learning and development leaders, teams and training programs is that they now need to be able to:

• Create content that can be effectively and efficiently distributed to any employee anywhere, driving online training
• Accelerate the introduction of learning materials that are engaging enough to generate comprehension and retention,  to close the skills gap, remain competitive, and drive growth.
• Achieve scale in continuously producing large volumes of new learning content to align the workforce with the corporate training objectives

And, to complicate matters even more, all this needs to be done with superlative cost efficiency.

But doing all this isn’t easy:

Delivering learning content to any and every employee wherever they are in the world can be a logistics nightmare for training programs.

Assuring that this content is compelling and engaging, when people are working from home, finding themselves beset by a severe case of ‘Zoom fatigue,’ is likewise a tough hurdle to overcome.

Maintaining learner engagement is so challenging, in fact, that it’s been identified as the top area of improvement for e-learning.

And without engagement, comprehension and retention are surely out of reach, where the average employee will have forgotten 65% of the material covered in a learning session. 90% after six months.

Furthermore, creating learning content in innovative ways comes with a high price tag. Budgets these days are not increasing in direct proportion to the increase in need, especially as organizations brace for an economic downturn.

It’s time to evolve

So, on the one hand L&D understands that it has a key, strategic role in advancing the success of the business (and avoiding risk) both in the near and long term.

And on the other hand, it is also clear that achieving strategic goals and overcoming challenges, means that L&D needs to evolve. The same old same old just won’t do anymore. And this is reflected in the fact that

• 70% of L&D professionals say their blend of job training delivery methods will change.
• There is a 71% increase in demand for digital learning.
• 73% of learning leaders plan to develop more custom content.

So how can L&D overcome some of its toughest challenges and improve ever training program?

With video.

Video to the rescue

As a digital medium, video can be broadcast, distributed, and consumed anywhere, overcoming the remote consumption challenge.

It is also perfect for securing engagement. The visual and auditory nature of videos sparks millions of neurons that don’t light up with other types of learning content.

Moreover, human beings have an innate preference for video. We can see this in the fact that in 2020, 96% of consumers watched more video online than ever. As for learners, 92% report that video has a positive impact on their learning experience.

And as we have seen from our colleagues in Marketing, they have long leveraged the fact that 95% of a message is retained when watched in a video, as compared with 10% when reading the message as text.

We want video. And we want video not only when we’re scrolling through our social feeds or researching products to buy online. We want at work, and we want video to help us learn at work.

According to Forrester, 75% of employees agreed that they were more likely to watch a job training video than look through documents or scroll through emails and web articles.

In terms of comprehension and retention, the use of short video clips in training video allows for more efficient processing and memory recall in general, and specifically for L&D videos can make employee training more effective.

And there is evidence to prove it. Namely, the human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text, resulting in higher retention rates as compared with other learning media.

But not just any video will do

For a corporate learning video to be effective, a key element is the instructor. This is why instructor-led training video is among the most common type of corporate training video found in corporate training programs.

People respond to people. And this is where the talking head video comes into play. This is the kind of video where, true to its name, an instructor – our talking head – is on screen delivering the learning content.

Making talking head training videos a part of your training programs can boost interactive training, active learning, boost career development, soft skills, and other meet business goals. Creating videos is easy with D-ID.

When people want to learn more about a product or service, 96% of them seek out a talking head explainer video.

The benefits of talking head videos in corporate training programs are many. And especially in a remote and hybrid model, it helps employees to experience the human connection that they often feel they are missing.

And when the talking head is someone from within the organization, the learner gains an otherwise unavailable opportunity to become familiar with people in the company they might not get to meet.

What about scale and costs?

Yes, training video addresses the key challenges of remote distribution, and learner engagement, comprehension, and retention.

And instructor-led, talking head training videos can take this even further in e-learning and corporate training.

But how is it possible to scale and enable the production of large volumes of learning content in your corporate training program? And what about costs?

Training video production is not known for being a cost and time efficient endeavor. Rather, the path to create training videos is notorious for having a high price tag, often requiring a professional agency for scripting, production, crew, equipment and video editing software.

As for talking head videos, it isn’t always easy to find employees who are willing to ‘go on stage’ and be the face of your corporate training program.

There has to be another way

Imagine you could create the video we see below at the touch of a button, where all you’d need to do is upload an image, then audio or text, and click to transform the image into an engaging, compelling, effective learning or training video to build into your training programs.

D-ID’s creative AI technology takes images of faces and turns them into high-quality, photorealistic videos to use as training videos in your learning program.

You could create:

• As many engaging talking head training videos as you want.
• New corporate training courses and updated onboarding materials on-the-fly, whenever needed.
• Personalized, engaging, and compelling learning content for any required topic or domain, hard or soft skills.
• And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Well, the great news is that you don’t have to imagine.

How D-ID is helping L&D deliver value

D-ID is bringing a way to reduce the time, cost, and effort of producing, personalizing, and revising corporate learning and training video content, and specifically talking head corporate training video.

We empower employee training and development teams to create more videos than ever, that are more effective and engaging than ever, at the click of a button and at a mere fraction of the cost.

• Compliance training and other mandatory training
• Corporate training programs
• Employee development and development programs
• Online training and remote learning
• Sales team training and online learning
• On-boarding content for new employees

There is no need for video editing skills, video editing software, nor for hiring an expensive production crew with actors and tons of complex equipment.

With D-ID anyone can create and update talking head training video for their corporate training. Our offering is an AI-based solution that takes images of faces and turns them into high-quality, realistic videos. It turns a single photo of a person into as many videos as you need, without having to recruit an in-house volunteer to be filmed.

And with these highly personal videos you get increased levels of engagement, comprehension, learning session completion, and knowledge retention of almost any corporate training program.

Ultimately, with D-ID, L&D can meet its strategic objectives of:

• Distributing cutting-edge learning content to anyone, anywhere in a world of remote work and online training
• Bridging the growing skills gap with compelling and effective learning and training contents
• Achieving scale to produce as many new learning content as needed, on-the-fly for your training program
• Securing unprecedented cost efficiency

And this is how L&D can meet its strategic objectives and drive value for employees and the organization in the modern workplace.

To learn more about how you can create as many talking head videos for your corporate training content as you need, at the click of a button a fraction of the cost, with no video editing software, get started here.

The post Better Engagement, Comprehension and Knowledge Retention: Why Training Video is the Must-have for your L&D Toolbox appeared first on D-ID.

Remember that heady mix of exhilaration and terror as you walked into the classroom on your first day at school? Or the butterflies in your stomach as you locked eyes with your first proper date? What about your first day at work?

However accustomed our older selves have become to regular job-hopping, most of us will have those exact same feelings every time we start in a new role.

HR wisdom suggests that getting the onboarding process for new employees right from the get-go can contribute directly to the bottom line. Yet all too many organizations view it as a distraction, a necessary evil which can be skimped on.

Up to one in four starters choose to quit before the first few months are out; disappointed at the mismatch between a shiny job spec and the lackluster day-to-day reality.

Yet while having a good start at an organization makes it more likely that new employees will stick around, saving significant recruitment costs down the track, the early days also impact  their long-term success or failure.

So far, so clear then that taking bold steps to improve your employee onboarding process makes sound financial and people management sense.

But what about the costs?

There’s no doubt that an all-singing and dancing induction program can be expensive. By deploying next-generation digital tools though, showcasing the organization and company culture and making newbies feel valued doesn’t need to break the bank. A good employee onboarding process can be less expensive than you think.

As our new guide to employee onboarding shows, tech developments make welcoming a new member of staff more affordable than ever.

Adept at handling both the core information that all starters require as standard, yet also able to add on the extra welcoming bits that make a starter feel warm inside, AI can save both time and money.

The ideal new employee onboarding process should:

• Build rapport before day one to boost new hires’ confidence
• Ensure a warm welcome from the top, this time using next-generation AI
• Manage the great expectations on both sides to maximize early promise
• Establish a cultural fit helps trigger long-term commitment and engagement
• Giving post-honeymoon feedback keeps onboarding effective and relevant

Let’s see how these elements of a successful onboarding process plays out in detail in our onboarding checklist.

Build rapport before day one

By starting your new employees onboarding at least a week before the start date of your new hire, you will bridge the gap between ‘I got the job’ euphoria and first day nerves and help ensure the new employee hits the ground running in that first week.

The perfect employee onboarding process begins with essential hire paperwork and mandatory training before moving on to key information about the organisation, the role and the projects your starters are likely to be involved in.

Remember that when you’re new, getting acclimatized quickly to the company culture and company policies can make a big difference to how positively or negatively you view your employer.

Nuts and bolts information about getting to the location, on-site car parking information, security pass procedure, catering arrangements and even directions to restroom facilities may sound trivial.

Yet knowing how long the journey is likely to take in the rush hour, or where to get a coffee, can make the difference between a difficult first week and a winning one.

By paying attention to the minutiae of office life, as well as more grandiose topics such as social governance or market strategy in your onboarding program, will hook new hires from the start, ensuring ongoing employee engagement.

A warm welcome from the top

While it may once have been the norm for newbies to receive a face-to-face welcome and encouraging handshake from someone senior before their first lunch break, hybrid working makes such formalities less relevant.

Yet whether a new hire is set to be based in HQ, or will work remotely much of the time, getting up close and personal with colleagues before they start will make them feel more engaged and committed to the firm.

Although meet and greet events have traditionally been done live and in person, developments in AI make the pre-recording of a video welcome – featuring the entire team at their desks or perhaps using avatar stand-in’s – convenient and affordable.

By cutting out the costs of a crew, lighting, make-up, sound, location and wardrobe, new tech can also help bridge the gap between new employees at the coal-face and the top brass throughout the onboarding process.

An off-the-shelf, talking head video of the chief executive offering a generic first-day welcome helps reassure new recruits that they are valued by the executive floor.

More personalized messages to individual recruits, recorded in their own language, make it possible to improve your employee onboarding process even further with the use of best-of-breed AI.

Great expectations

What do you want the new hire to do in the first few weeks? Should they focus solely on theoretical onboarding tasks or does a rush job mean that they will need to dive straight into their paid role?

Failing to provide new hires with clear instructions can add unnecessary stress and anxiety but that doesn’t mean bombarding them with information churned out by an onboarding sausage machine is a good strategy either.

People learn in different ways and at different paces and it’s important to tailor your content to individual styles. While some people respond best via quiet reading, others will prefer a one-to-one orientation, group work or the opportunity to get hands-on.

However they learn though, remember that new hires being onboarded may quickly become overwhelmed by the deluge of new intel – not to mention all the unfamiliar names and faces – and need regular periods of downtime in order to keep pace.

Onboard buddy

Whether it’s David from Logistics who has been in the organization for a thousand years or kind-hearted Dawn; a sympathetic sounding board for everyone’s’ personal problems, it’s good practice to assign a named someone to help bring your employee onboarding process to life and provide some support for your new hires.

Getting to know how a new organization ticks will inevitably raise questions, many of which will not be covered in the official onboarding program or employee handbook. It’s a less structured onboarding process.

Most new hires will encounter teething problems – with the accounts department perhaps, or security passes – but may be reluctant to bother busy managers or the HR department with such trifles.

Other employees will already have devised shortcuts to overcome the irritating glitches in the expensive new IT or accounts payable automation systems and by passing on essential hacks, can help mitigate any early stress points and ensure a smooth transition from newbie to experienced hand, increasing employee engagement.

While an onboarding buddy tends to be a middle or junior-ranking member of staff, consider assigning more expensive hires their own mentor. By drawing on the experience of senior colleagues, a good mentoring scheme will help ensure that a significant hire’s career trajectory travels in the right direction helping employee retention in the longer term.

Cultural fit

Every organization has, over time, built its own unique set of values or ‘how we do things around here’ and for any new hire, getting to grips with the prevailing cultural norms can be the biggest challenge of all.

Whether your cultural style tends to be strictly profit-led or leans towards the philanthropic, there’s no time like those early weeks to share your corporate vision with the future lifeblood of the firm.

By getting a new hire on board with how you view your organization’s role in the modern world, you can build loyalty and an all-important sense of purpose as the recruit settles into the job.

For the most part, an employee’s first few days on the job should be spent learning about the company, perhaps via a mix of one to one or group sessions plus private learning.

Providing real-world examples of how your corporate values are played out on a daily basis – both in good times and bad – is an essential chapter in any organization’s story and builds personality for your employer brand.

Don’t forget to outline the attitudes and behaviors that are encouraged and discouraged in your workplace and set clear goals around individual performance, as well as relationships with customers and colleagues.

By offering newbies a clear outline of your expectations, you continue to improve your employee onboarding process and offer your people a crucial roadmap to future success.

Post-honeymoon feedback

After a few weeks, Henry in HR and Sally in Sales may already seem like part of the furniture but this is no time to let down your guard.

View your employee onboarding process as a long-term relationship, not a brief flirtation and satisfy yourself that the newbies are settled and productive and not secretly negotiating to quit for your closest competitor.

Get progress reports from buddies and mentors and if difficulties have arisen – personality clashes with colleagues or clear signs of overload and stress – take steps to address them.

The impact of employee onboarding should be measured in years, not months and while a good experience means people become productive sooner, a bad one may trigger a rash of costly emergency recruitment drives.

Ultimately, the best way to improve your employee onboarding process is to ask new staff for no-holds-barred feedback and take their comments on board.

What did you get right, where did it go wrong and do they have any suggestions of how future recruits can be made to feel at home?

The final tip in our new guide to employee onboarding is to remember your own first, bewildering days at your current organization and to listen.

Take time to hear and absorb what your new people have to say about your onboarding program and like them, continue to learn from your mistakes.

What D-ID can bring to your onboarding program

D-ID automates the creation of AI-based video training materials, making for a faster and more effective onboarding process. Highly personalized content can be generated on the fly.

To learn more about how you can create as many talking head videos for your corporate training content as you need, at the click of a button a fraction of the cost get started here.

The post Employee Onboarding 101: Hook Them from Day One appeared first on D-ID.

Back in 2020, the pandemic created the urgent need for progressive businesses to go online, initiating training, learning and development programs which would allow staff to keep up with the fast-moving changes. And it wasn’t just push from employers, it was also something employees were demanding.

According to Deloitte, 42% of employees looking for a new opportunity say one reason is that their employers are not helping them maximize their skills and capabilities. If workers feel they aren’t keeping current, they’ll likely quit, becoming part of the ‘Great Resignation’ movement in which 4 million Americans are leaving their jobs on an almost monthly basis. 

So, to stay competitive and innovative, executive leadership needed to provide effective training programs, corporate training and upskilling opportunities, to give employees the skills they needed to excel in their jobs and advance within the organization. 

The predicted economic downturn is having an impact on corporate training budgets

But just 18 months later and companies are now starting to hit the brakes when it comes to expenditure. Despite the importance of creating training videos, as it’s not an immediate revenue-producing area, there is a risk that management views reducing the quantity of training videos as an easy way to cut costs. But the winning Learning & Development (L&D) departments are figuring out a way to continue delivering corporate training programs and training video presentations and e-learning at a low-cost, without forsaking high quality. 

To help you continue offering quality corporate training video at a low cost, here are some areas you might want to consider.

Companies Are Tightening Their Belts: How To Offer Cost-Effective Corporate Training Program With A Smaller Budget

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance

Being clear on your company’s goals will help you build your training programs in the most cost-effective way

Before you start producing your corporate training video content, it’s important to put in place proper planning and strategy. This will help ensure that you are outputting effective training video and engaging content. Here are a few things to consider:

– Who is your target audience for your training courses? What are their needs and learning objectives? Is it for compliance training? Project management? Training for the sales team? Or is it more soft skills like problem solving or teamwork?

How to offer cost-effective corporate training program with a smaller budget

• What format will your own training videos need to be in to be most effective for your online training program? Should you consider interactive training?
• How will you deliver the content for your training programs? Will it be self-paced or delivered in a live training session? Is it mandatory training?
• What technology do you need to produce and deliver the corporate training video? Do you have the necessary equipment and video editing software, or will you need to purchase or lease them?

An investment in technology like AI or video editing software could be a huge cost saver

Before you roll out and create training video, identify the key needs for the business. Ask for feedback from both the management team and workers to ascertain what are the most important areas for training programs. Once there is an understanding and ranking of mission-critical job training tasks, the L&D team can use the feedback to produce e-learning and your own training video to match the high-priority needs of the business. 

Quality over quantity

Fewer but better beats more but worse

When it comes to an employee training program, quality is more important than quantity. Instead of producing a large quantity of training video, in the hope that it will address all of the needs of all employees, consider delivering fewer videos, but put in the time and effort to make them really standout and resonate.

Effective training videos with real impact will be worth so much more than creating videos for the sake of it

Instead of cranking out a bunch of mediocre training video, it’s better to produce fewer videos that are top-notch and truly resonate with employees. By taking the time to create engaging, informative videos that capture employees’ attention, you can ensure that your job training materials are effective and well-received. 

Additionally, by incorporating interactive elements or real-life scenarios into your training video, you can further enhance their usefulness and make sure that employees are getting the most out of them. 

By investing in quality over quantity, you can create training video that will make a lasting impact on your employees.

Get Creative And Fluid With Your Budget

Necessity is the mother of invention – time to get inventive

In turbulent times of uncertainty, companies need to continually pivot and change – and that includes your training program. The company may have a history of in-person learning; however, in a recessionary environment when costs are a big issue, there is a need for training video creators to be creative, flexible and open-minded to changing the nature of the programs and doing things in new ways. 

If you don’t have the funds to produce the creative videos that you want, consider crowdsourcing training content and information from mentors and contacts within your network—those that are willing to champion the advancement and success of others and the company. There’s no reason why you need to do everything yourself. 

Businesses can also forge strategic alliances with other organizations. For instance, if you are making a sales-related training video, enlist a company that has a large and well-respected salesforce to partner with. This will defray some of the costs and also increase the visibility of your training video to a wider audience, gaining additional attention for your firm.

AI-based technology can also help you reach your DEI goals, making it much easier to create diverse representation in your development programs

Another example is in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. In our post-George Floyd society, there is a nearly insatiable demand for video training content around DEI.

As this movement has garnered the interest of both the public and private sectors, progressive companies can partner with educational institutions, city, state and federal government divisions, nonprofits and other groups who champion this cause to share the cost of video creation for online training.

Make better use of the talent already in your business

Great people with extraordinary skills are already in your organization. You just need to make use of them

Mentoring and two-way training via video can be an effective low-cost training tool. For example, using a web-conferencing platform, members of  executive leadership can offer training online, in an inexpensive and personalized fashion. 

The staff can offer feedback and ask questions to the senior management. This will also serve as a way to solidify engagement between two groups of employees that don’t ordinarily fraternize. Both the executives and staff will gain a better appreciation for each other and create a bond, which will help with both corporate training and retaining talent.

Is there already talent in your business you can leverage to help create your corporate training content?

As part of your training program, additional videos can be initiated on a regular basis to share what skills and expertise needed to meet and exceed employee development goals. 

Also, as anyone who has ever gone viral on social media knows, the reach of these platforms can be staggering. And for businesses, that kind of attention can be extremely valuable. After all, there’s no better way to position your organization as media-savvy and adventurous than by sharing employee-generated training videos directly on social media sites.

Not only could this help to burnish your brand, but it will also motivate the workers who produce the videos. They’ll take pride in their initiatives and feel a sense of ownership over the content. And of course, there’s always the chance that one of the videos will go viral. That kind of exposure is priceless.

Use AI-based Tools To Save Money And Speed Up Output

Corporate training is being shaken up by the world of artificial intelligence, helping people do a lot more for a lot less

Cutting-edge, AI-driven technologies can be a huge solution to this issue. AI-generated media, offers a way to continue upskilling and growing employee development in a way that dramatically reduces costs of corporate training.

D-ID, is one of the world leaders in this area. The firm has launched a new platform that provides the software to offer dazzling e-learning, corporate training videos and marketing content.  

With D-ID, there isn’t a need to spend a small fortune hiring actors, directors and a film crew. You won’t have to wait weeks or months to get a finished product. 

The startup makes everything easy and simple. For example, given a photo of the CEO or Chief People Officer, and D-ID’s AI technology can dynamically and vividly offer corporate training videos and other important matters without them even needing to be there.

For large firms with international offices, executives can create training videos in multiple languages to share with employees across the globe in their language. It doesn’t just have to be the C-suite.

With AI-generated content, your training programs will be able to address teams across the world in their own languages

The startup offers a virtually endless amount of choices of corporate training speakers, teachers and instructors across ethnicity, color, size or gender. Within seconds, you can create beautiful videos, along with content and realistic audio to be integrated into your video editing software

Deploying technology can provide high quality training videos for less money compared to traditional office-based or offsite training sessions. The tools and platforms are readily available and cost-effective to deliver within a tight budget.

In conclusion

Training professionals must become adept at finding cost-effective solutions that don’t sacrifice quality.

As the saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The same can be said of preparing for an economic downturn. By making some cost-saving changes now, you can still offer quality training videos without breaking the bank. 

D-ID’s AI technology increases the engagement, interaction and comprehension of corporate training, while radically reducing the time, cost and effort required to produce, personalize and revise video content.

Even in a tight economy, employee training is still a critical investment for businesses. By taking a strategic and creative approach to your e-learning content, you can provide high-quality effective training videos at a fraction of the cost. D-ID has years of experience helping companies create engaging and effective video content, so contact us today to find out how we can help you get the most out of your corporate training programs without busting your budget.

The post How To Prepare For An Economic Downturn While Still Offering Quality Corporate Training Videos appeared first on D-ID.

Post-COVID, the demand for online communication has increased in many fields, not least of which includes education and  e-learning. There are however still old-world offline issues that need to be overcome. For instance, it is time-consuming to shoot and record lectures, often with the need for multiple crews with specific expertise to be present when shooting such as camera, lighting, and wardrobe, as well as the need for the continued presence of the eLearning Instructor.

As Skill Plus’s Representative Director, Yu Tsukada says, “To record a 30-minute e-learning course, we had to allocate at least 4 hours for travel, preparation, filming, and cleanup. In addition to the instructor, a filming crew, and a director had to be present.  We wanted to eliminate these problems and were looking for ways to utilize realistic digital human instructors . With D-ID’s Speaking Portrait, we can now easily create elearning videos that are more engaging and personal.”  

Using D-ID’s technology, Skill Plus developed Meta Speaker®, a system which generates digital humans from photographs and audio, drastically saving the time it takes to create educational videos.

“With Meta Speaker®, a single staff member can produce a digital human-learning instructor in about 30 minutes, significantly reducing the work-hours required,” says Tsukada.

“When we were considering a tech partner for this project, we chose D-ID because they are simply the leading company in the world for creating educational videos at scale from still images.”

An example of Skill Plus’s  Meta Speaker® in an e-learning environment can be seen here.

Skill Plus intends to produce more e-learning courses in the future using Meta Speaker®.  Currently they have a service aimed specifically at owners of beauty salons, who face particular challenges keeping up to date with regulations and best practice. They plan to expand further into industries that require the use of digital human resources. 

“We are convinced that this will be a new business opportunity for publishers, authors, and next-generation authors,” says Tsukada.

Get in touch today to learn more about how we can help you use AI to improve your L&D initiatives using D-ID’s proprietary digital human technology. 

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About D-ID

D-ID is a Tel Aviv-based Creative Reality startup specializing in patented video reenactment technology using AI and deep learning. D-ID’s products range from animating still photos, to facilitating high-quality video productions, and creating viral user experiences. With funding from tier 1 VCs, D-ID aims to radically disrupt the time, hassle and costs involved in video production, allowing for the creation of highly personalized media using AI, specifically in history, e-learning, corporate training, marcomms, AI assistants, and the Metaverse. With international customers, D-ID’s core competencies in the human face and deep learning enable its partners to create exciting and engaging content that was until now unimaginable. To find out more, visit www.d-id.com.

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About Skill Plus

Skillplus Inc. creates online and e-learning courses for corporations and individuals. In response to changes in social conditions, we have developed MetaSpeaker(R), a platform that enables the creation of courses without being restricted by time or location, based on the technology of D-ID, an advanced AI company based in Israel. The message is "free the user from filming sites and filming time". As a solution for easy video creation, its range of applications is expanding to include not only e-learning courses, but also video manuals and news production. To find more, visit to https://skill-plus.com/

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Media Contact

Gina Shaffer

Phone: +1-707-533-1504

Email: d-idpr@si14global.com

The post D-ID Announces New Partnership With Japanese E-learning Company Skill Plus appeared first on D-ID.

As the soaring popularity of platforms such as Instagram and Zoom clearly tell us, AI video is the runaway medium of the age; dominating both our business lives and downtime.

Compelling research suggests that video not only has the power to engage us emotionally but can even help us retain core information – particularly if it is fronted by a human face.

Yet the fear of added cost and complexity has, to date, hampered its widespread adoption in learning & development.

Until recently, producing decent-quality training videos meant hiring a film production company more accustomed to big names and big budgets than a 10-minute talking head video featuring the director of L&D.

But next-generation learning platforms and video editing tools are re-writing the rules.

With AI-powered learning now disrupting traditional thinking, more immersive, personalized training video for the digital workplace just got a whole lot easier and more affordable.

Regardless of whether you hire in a large film crew or deploy an online training video generator tool to create training videos, there are some key principles to consider.

Here are five tips for improving your video creation capability

1. Face First

Keep it personal

As human beings, we are hardwired to respond to faces and for the bulk of learning & development projects, a center-stage presenter is the most reliable way to get your message across quickly and efficiently.

While traditionally, this pivotal role has been played by a member of the team, or a professional actor, digital human technology uses an avatar, whose expressions, intonation and body language are as fascinating and engaging as our own.

Whether the instructor is a member of the team or is drawn from an infinite supply of stock images, an AI powered video generator such as the one from D-ID, allows a single human face to be synthesized at the touch of a button, representing a significant cost and time saving. 

When paired with the client’s chosen text or audio files, the generator can, within minutes, ‘automagically’ create easy-to-use, fully-updatable training videos fronted by a professional but relatable host.

In a notable challenge to the stale stereotypes of yesterday’s corporate video, avatars are also drawn from an inexhaustible supply of different ages, body types, ethnicities, nationalities and cultures – so it’s possible to find a ‘presenter’ that is the perfect reflection of your company’s brand and values. You can even make your own avatar.

2. Know What You Want

Plan Ahead

Whether the ultimate goal is one-off familiarization with a new corporate business partner, a routine onboarding program or part of a long-term cultural transformation exercise, every digital learning project needs a clear direction of travel.

Inevitably, the budget will to a large extent dictate the duration of the video, the shape of the eventual script and the choice between a colleague, actor or avatar as lead presenter.

For people who regularly create professional videos, however, being clear on desired outcomes right from the start can save time, money and the hassle of a re-start if production or editing doesn’t go to plan.

Having agreed on what you want to achieve in terms of specific learning outcomes, the scene is set for discussions around the nature of the content – talking head segments interspersed with footage of the team at work perhaps – as well as final length.

For those choosing the production company route to create videos, rather than synthetic media, significant set-up and production costs can be saved by shooting 10 or even 20 training videos on the same day, rather than a single script.

3. Less Is More

Keep Training Video Short & Sweet

Bite-sized, micro-learning may have become a way of life but that doesn’t mean you can cut corners.

Introducing the topic, covering and demonstrating core content and wrapping up with key takeaways – all in a compelling, memorable form – are essential elements of any successful training video.

While there may be a lot of material to cover in a production lasting little longer than the average TV commercial break, keeping the key points short and succinct adds impact and boosts retention.

The consensus is that training videos of between five and eight minutes hits the sweet spot for learners now accustomed to receiving information in online video chunks, while anything above 10 to 15 minutes will test limited attention spans to the max.

As hybrid working continues to transform the world of work, keeping employees enthused has become as vital as maintaining efficiency.

Regardless of whether you prefer the emotional resonance of a talking head video or an animated explainer, a well-produced, engaging training video can help reconnect a business to its entire workforce.

4. Goodbye Hollywood

Create professional videos cost-effectively

While a video destined to be seen by millions of people around the globe as part of a multimillion pound marketing campaign requires state-of-the-art production values, the same is not true of internal training videos.

Although it will need to look and sound professional in order to win hearts and minds, engaging videos aimed at a 200-strong sales force don’t require three people to handle the lighting, sophisticated video editing software and an assistant director dedicated to wielding the clapperboard.

Undoubtedly, there will be some in L&D who are prepared to sanction a cheapo, DIY training video created entirely on a mobile phone, despite the high risk of falling flat on their feet at the first viewing.

Yet equally impractical are the film houses who argue that top-dollar, tinseltown techniques are non-negotiable, even for the most modest training video commission.

The happy medium comes down to balancing the strategic imperative against the irresistible urge to get creative, all the time keeping a firm hold of your end-goals.

5. Ask The Audience 

Do your research

Budgets for traditional training videos can run from less than $2,000 to well over $30,000 – less in the case of AI video generation – but if the content and messaging stray from the original purpose, a slug of that money is wasted. 

Spending time wading through competitors’ videos will give a good idea of what works and what doesn’t and how tried and tested approaches can be adapted to your own circumstances.

As an example, annotations and subtitles can create a sense of urgency in the audience and when accompanied by handouts at the end of the session, help create a clear and lasting impression.

Your team will give you great input as to what makes an engaging video

While every workplace learner has an anecdote about a slide presentation beset by tech glitches or a chalk-and-talk which sent the audience to sleep, a well-produced training video with a plausible presenter has a punchy message and a clear call to action.

By consulting with colleagues – particularly learners – before embarking on your next video content strategy extravaganza, you can be sure that what you believe is an inspirational message will move your audience towards greater engagement rather than the exit door.

In Conclusion

So, in conclusion, there is lots you can do to help you create videos that are both cost effective and impactful.  Create better quality video content without breaking the training budget, by considering the following:

1. Face first – faces create engaging videos, make sure you use them
2. Know what you want – people who make professional videos know it’s all about planning ahead
3. Less is more – create high quality videos, not long ones
4. Goodbye Hollywood – you don’t need a big budget to produce a professional video
5. Ask the audience what do they want to see? What do they think will make effective training videos?

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D-ID’s AI technology increases the engagement, interaction and comprehension of learning content, while radically reducing the time, cost and effort required to produce, personalize and revise video content.

Learning & Development teams, LMSs and educational video creators can now add talking head videos to e-learning content at the click of a button.

Simply input text or an audio file and the video is automagically created by our AI video generator.

No need for a crew, lighting, make-up, sound, location or wardrobe.

Contact us to find out more about how D-ID can help you create training videos.

The post Five Ways to Increase The Quantity of Video Content Without Blowing Your Training Budget appeared first on D-ID.