Synthesia Roleplay Sessions vs devlin.ai: Which Should You Use in 2026?
By Devlin Peck · Updated
Part of the AI in Instructional Design guide
Synthesia Roleplay Sessions and devlin.ai both let employees practice high-stakes conversations with an AI character that talks back, pushes back, and scores the attempt. The choice comes down to where practice should live. If your organization already runs on Synthesia and you want avatar video practice inside that platform, Roleplay Sessions is the natural pick. If you want voice-first practice embedded in the courses and LMS you already have, with no learner accounts to manage, that is what devlin.ai is built for.
Full disclosure before anything else: devlin.ai is my product. I will tell you where each tool fits, including where mine falls short, and I will keep the comparison to what both companies have published. Feature claims about Roleplay Sessions reflect Synthesia's July 2026 launch and their materials as of August 2026 when I attended their launch webinar. This piece is part of my full guide to AI in instructional design.
What is Synthesia Roleplay Sessions?
Roleplay Sessions is Synthesia's AI practice product, launched in July 2026 as the first release on their new Sessions platform. Employees rehearse conversations like sales pitches, performance reviews, and customer complaints with one of Synthesia's Interactive Avatars. The avatar improvises in character, then the session is scored against a rubric, and results feed manager dashboards with a team-wide view, transcript drill-downs, and session replay, which they demonstrated at the launch webinar. At launch it supports practice in English, German, Spanish, and French, with more languages planned, per the launch announcement.
The pitch is strong for organizations already on Synthesia. The company built its name on AI video for workplace training, it has a large enterprise footprint, and its avatars are the most polished in the category. If your team produces training video in Synthesia today, Roleplay Sessions adds a practice layer without adding a vendor.
It is also two weeks old as I write this. At the launch webinar, attendees (myself included) could open the demo roleplays but many could not yet find a create flow in their own accounts, and questions about licensing and pricing were directed to account teams. None of this is unusual for a staged enterprise rollout. It does mean that if you are evaluating it this quarter, your first question is what is actually enabled on your plan today. Their Sessions documentation is the place to watch as the rollout progresses.
What is devlin.ai? (full disclosure: this one is mine)
devlin.ai is a simulation builder. Instructional designers create a scenario through a guided setup (the character, the situation, the evaluation criteria), then deliver it wherever their learners already are: embedded in Articulate Storyline or Rise courses, dropped into an LMS via SCORM or xAPI, or shared as a hosted link. Learners talk with the character by voice, get scored against the rubric the designer defined, and the results flow back into the course, including pass/fail and score variables inside Storyline itself. Scenarios can be grounded in your own documents, so a character quotes your return policy rather than a plausible-sounding invention. Learners never create accounts, and getting started is self-serve: you can sign up and build your first simulation the same day, with no sales call required. On the trust side, devlin.ai holds a SOC 2 Type 1 report with Type 2 in progress, and learner voice audio is not retained; session review works from transcripts.
Where it falls down: there is no avatar video. That is a deliberate tradeoff (voice keeps the learner's attention on the conversation or other visuals rather than a rendered face), but if your stakeholders want a person on screen, Synthesia is ahead there and likely will stay ahead. devlin.ai launched in 2026, so it is a young product. And it is a practice layer, not a video platform: you will keep making your training video somewhere else.
How do the two compare side by side?
This table is a breakdown of the two vendors' own published materials, checked in August 2026.
| Synthesia Roleplay Sessions | devlin.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Practice format | Video conversation with an Interactive Avatar | Voice conversation, no avatar |
| Where learners practice | In Synthesia's learner web app, by direct link or HTML embed, or via SCORM export to your LMS, per their materials | Inside your courses (Storyline, Rise, LMS) or a hosted link |
| Learner access | Learners sign in with their Synthesia credentials per their materials; confirm what a seat means under your license | No learner accounts; learners open the course or link |
| Scoring | Rubric scoring with session replay, transcripts, and team dashboards | Designer-defined rubrics with transcripts (voice audio is not retained); results write to SCORM/xAPI and Storyline variables |
| Grounding in your content | Scenario setup at build time | Scenario setup plus knowledge base grounding in your uploaded documents |
| Platform context | One product in an AI video platform | The whole product; video stays with your video tool |
| Languages | English, German, Spanish, French at launch, more planned | Current support for 16+ languages |
| Pricing model | Enterprise licensing; talk to your account team | Usage-based AI credits on Team and Enterprise plans |
| Getting started | Enterprise rollout; access through your Synthesia account team for now | Self-serve; sign up and build the same day |
When should you choose Synthesia Roleplay Sessions?
Choose Roleplay Sessions if most of these are true:
- Your organization already licenses Synthesia and your learners already work inside it.
- Avatar presence matters to your stakeholders, and a voice-only experience would be a hard sell.
- You want practice as a managed destination, with manager dashboards as the primary reporting surface.
- Your learners practice in English, German, Spanish, or French.
- You would rather consolidate with one large vendor than add a specialist.
That last point may make a lot of sense for your team. Vendor consolidation is a legitimate reason to pick the bigger platform, and I would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
When should you choose devlin.ai?
Choose devlin.ai if most of these are true:
- Practice needs to happen inside the courses you already have or are building, not on another platform.
- You are rolling out to hundreds or thousands of learners and do not want to manage accounts or per-learner platform access for any of them.
- Your scenarios must stay grounded in your actual policies, SOPs, or product documentation.
- You are training phone-heavy roles (contact centers, sales calls, telehealth) where voice practice without a face on screen is the realistic condition.
- You want to pilot this quarter: sign up is self-serve, and there is no sales cycle required to start building.
If you are earlier in the decision than this, before vendor selection, start with when AI role-play works and when it does not.
Can you use both?
Yes, and for Synthesia-heavy organizations this is often the right answer rather than a compromise. Use Synthesia for what it is best at, producing the instructional video your program needs, and embed devlin.ai simulations inside the same courses for the practice and assessment layer. The two do not compete for the same slot in that architecture.
One more thing worth saying about the category: Synthesia entering practice is good news for everyone who has been arguing that practice beats content. When a large platform pivots from making videos to measuring conversations, it confirms the direction. The competition is on depth from here.
What should you ask either vendor before you buy?
Send both vendors the same five questions, verbatim, and compare the answers in writing:
- Do learners need accounts or licenses, and what does a rollout to 1,000 learners cost in total?
- Can practice run inside our LMS and authoring tools, and how do scores get back to us (SCORM, xAPI, or API)?
- Can we define our own scoring rubric, and can reviewers see full transcripts?
- What security attestations can you share today (for example a current SOC 2 report), and how long is conversation data retained?
- What happens when a learner goes off script or tries to break the character?
A longer version of this checklist, including the build-vs-buy math, is in how to evaluate AI simulation tools.
What are the alternatives to Synthesia Roleplay Sessions?
Beyond devlin.ai, two dedicated practice platforms come up most often: Second Nature, which focuses on sales pitch practice for revenue teams, and Yoodli, which started in speech coaching and has expanded into broader communication roleplay. I have not run either through a full hands-on test, so I will not rank them; the platform-versus-layer question above is still the right first filter for both. My wider tool rundown is in the AI tools I actually use.
The non-AI alternative is the branching scenario you build yourself in a tool like Storyline. It is still the right call for compliance-critical paths where every word must be authored, and the tradeoffs are covered in my AI role-play briefing linked above.
Frequently asked questions
Do learners need an account to practice?
With devlin.ai, no. Learners open the course or the link and start talking; there is nothing to sign up for. With Synthesia Roleplay Sessions, learners sign in with their Synthesia credentials per the company's materials, so confirm with your account team what a learner seat means under your license.
Can AI roleplay run inside Articulate Storyline or an LMS?
devlin.ai is built for this: simulations embed in Storyline and Rise, package for any SCORM or xAPI compliant LMS, and write results back to Storyline variables, so a roleplay and a knowledge check can post as one scored event. Synthesia's materials describe SCORM export to your LMS as well, and their documentation notes that SCORM delivery and their portal's tracking do not sync with each other; the question to put to their team is whether the roleplay can live inside one of your existing courses and contribute to that course's single score, or ships as its own standalone object.
What languages does Synthesia Roleplay Sessions support?
English, German, Spanish, and French at the July 2026 launch, with more planned, per Synthesia's launch materials. Re-check their documentation for the current list before you commit a non-English program.
How much does AI conversation practice cost?
Synthesia Roleplay Sessions is sold through enterprise licensing, so pricing comes from their account team. devlin.ai prices on usage-based AI credits within its Team and Enterprise plans, so cost tracks how much your learners actually practice. For the category-level cost math, see the cost section of my AI role-play briefing.
The Bottom Line
If your learners already live in Synthesia and your stakeholders want avatar video, pick Roleplay Sessions and pressure-test the rollout details on your plan. If practice needs to live inside the courses and LMS you already ship, at learner counts where per-learner accounts stop making sense, pick devlin.ai. If you run a large Synthesia video program, the strongest architecture is often both: their video, your courses, and a practice layer inside them.
Whichever way you lean, send both vendors the five questions above before anyone talks pricing. The answers will make the decision for you faster than any demo. And if you are still earlier in the journey, start with the full guide to rolling out AI simulations.