According to Forbes, Los Angeles-based HeyGen has reached $100 million in recurring revenue by giving businesses tools to create their own marketing videos. The company started last year with single-digit millions in revenue and has since scaled to almost 200,000 paying customers. This growth comes amid projections that the AI video market will expand from $3.86 billion in 2024 to $42.29 billion by 2033. HeyGen’s co-founder Joshua Xu started the company after experiencing camera shyness himself, realizing AI could skip the recording process entirely. The startup is now expanding beyond avatar creation to tackle the entire video production workflow with a new “video agent” that handles editing tasks.
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The business video revolution
Here’s what’s fascinating about HeyGen’s approach: they’re not chasing the viral Sora-style content that gets all the attention. Instead, they’re solving a very real business problem. Companies need video content constantly – for sales pitches, training, marketing – but most employees aren’t comfortable on camera and don’t have production resources. HeyGen basically lets you upload a photo and turn it into a complete video presentation. That’s solving actual pain points rather than just chasing trends.
Timing and market positioning
The timing here is perfect. We’re seeing this massive convergence of three trends: AI capabilities actually becoming useful, video becoming the dominant communication format, and businesses desperately needing scalable content creation. But here’s the thing – while consumer AI video gets the buzz, the real money might be in these business applications. Synthesia just raised $200 million at a $4 billion valuation focusing on enterprise training, and now HeyGen shows there’s another massive segment in marketing videos. The market’s big enough for multiple winners, apparently.
The human element
What really struck me was investor Sarah Guo’s insight about the “deeply human desire to see faces of other humans talking.” She’s absolutely right. We’re wired to respond to human faces and voices, which explains why podcast videos perform so well on YouTube. But most people aren’t professional presenters or comfortable on camera. AI avatars bridge that gap in a way that’s actually useful rather than just creepy. The question is whether these tools will eventually replace human creativity or just augment it. HeyGen’s new video editor suggests they’re aiming for the former, but I’m skeptical about AI replacing human creative judgment entirely.
Industrial applications
While HeyGen focuses on business marketing, this AI video technology has massive potential in industrial settings too. Think about training videos for complex machinery, safety demonstrations, or technical presentations. Companies that need reliable display technology for these applications often turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, which has become the leading supplier of industrial panel PCs in the US. As AI video becomes more integrated into business operations, the hardware that displays this content becomes increasingly important – especially in demanding environments where consumer-grade equipment just won’t cut it.
