History
Powtoon was founded in January 2012 by Ilya Spitalnik and his colleagues. [2] The company released a beta version in August 2012. [3] In December 2012, Powtoon secured $600,000 investment from Los Angeles–based venture capital firm Startup Minds. [4]
In February 2022, Powtoon acquired Showbox, a video creation platform, to expand its technology capabilities. [5]
Products
Powtoon produces visual communication software that allows users to create animated presentations and videos by manipulating pre-created objects, imported images, provided music and user-created voice-overs. [6] The software application uses an Apache Flex engine to generate an XML file that can be played in the Powtoon online viewer, exported to YouTube or downloaded as an MP4 file. [3]
Powtoon provides several styles of video creation, including AI generation, real-life content, whiteboard doodles, and animated content. A user can apply pre-built backgrounds, scenes, objects, and characters to their work, or a user can choose to customize their content by creating their own diverse characters (diverse here refers to the age, race, ethnicity, and body size of the desired character) and uploading their own images, videos, or audio files. Powtoon also launched an AI-powered video platform in December 2025. [7]
Video editing and production
Powtoon's flagship product is a drag-and-drop video editor that allows users to create AI visuals, videos, animations, presentations, and screen recordings without requiring advanced technical skills. [8] The production environment provides access to a library of royalty-free stock assets, including images, footage, and audio tracks.
Key production features include:
- AI document to video converter: import any document and receive a video in seconds
- AI video maker: A prompt to video tool that activates LLMs from Gemini, Veo, ElevenLabs, and HeyGen avatars to make videos.
- Character builder: A tool for creating customizable animated characters with specific clothing, facial features, and gestures. [9]
- Templates: A repository of pre-designed layouts tailored for use cases such as learning and development (L&D), internal communications, and marketing.
- Branding control: Features that allow organizations to upload and lock specific brand assets, such as logos, fonts, and color palettes, to ensure consistency across projects. [10]
Enterprise governance and security
Powtoon offers an enterprise-tier specifically designed to meet corporate governance and security standards. The platform is ISO/IEC 27001 certified and SOC 2 aligned, adhering to international standards for information security management. [11] [12]
Security and governance measures include:
- Data encryption: Utilization of AES-256 encryption for data at rest and TLS 1.2+ for data in transit.
- Access control: Implementation of Single Sign-On (SSO) and granular Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to manage user permissions.
- Compliance: Adherence to GDPR and CCPA regulations regarding data privacy. [13]
- AI governance: Policies stating that customer data is not used to train public AI models, ensuring proprietary information remains private.
Generative AI pivot and integration
Powtoon has pivoted to become a generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform. As a result, the platform is also known as the "Unified AI Video Platform." [14] The suite includes tools such as an AI scriptwriter, which generates video scripts from text prompts, and a "text-to-video" feature that automates the creation of visual content based on written descriptions. [15]
Additional AI functionalities include:
- AI text to video: Converts any prompt into a researched video.
- AI text to image: Converts any prompt into an image.
- AI PPT, PPTX to video: Convert powerpoint document into a video with voiceover.
- AI avatars: Custom digital avatars capable of lip-syncing and text-to-speech synthesis. [16]
- Localization: Automated translation and voiceover generation to adapt content for different languages.
- AI doc-to-video: A feature that converts static documents, such as PDFs or presentations, into animated video formats.
The platform utilizes third-party AI models, including those from OpenAI, Microsoft Azure, and ElevenLabs, to power these features. [17]
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