How Criteo uses AI video for newcomer onboarding
Discover how a single Criteo employee developed a 50+ video onboarding module in under 6 months.
Create onboarding videos that scale across teams and roles
Onboarding videos help people get started with more clarity and confidence.
Most often, that means helping new hires understand their role, key policies, and what to do first. They can also support product adoption and other first-time experiences where consistency matters.
What is an onboarding video?
An onboarding video is a short, focused video made to help someone get started in a new context. It explains the essential information, demonstrates the first actions to take, and points the viewer to the next step. Formats vary, but every onboarding video should be built around one clear job-to-be-done.
Examples of great onboarding videos
See how companies across industries leverage video to introduce their company, culture, and ways of working. Then, see tips for how you can borrow these formats when creating your own onboarding videos.
Accenture
▶️ Format to borrow: tips from current employees about concrete ways to be successful in your role
Adobe
▶️ Format to borrow: create video playlists that highlight different teams, allowing new hires to learn more about potential development opportunities.
Atlassian
▶️ Format to borrow: leaders and employees sharing their interpretation of company values.
Hubspot
▶️ Format to borrow: storytelling — bring your company's history to life in creative ways.
Lego
▶️ Format to borrow: interviewing team members about what it is like to work at the organization and in their roles.
Microsoft
▶️ Format to borrow: employees showcasing their experiences.
Missouri State University
▶️ Format to borrow: mixing b-roll with messages from leaders.
Patagonia
▶️ Format to borrow: employees sharing their career mobility at the organization.
Spotify
▶️ Format to borrow: introducing new hires to the office.
Synthesia
▶️ Format to borrow: AI-powered videos that can be localized to ensure all new hires receive the same quality onboarding.
🤔 Looking for more ways to showcase your company culture?
Check out our guide to get building culture videos.
What templates work best for onboarding videos?
The examples above show different ways to help people get started successfully. The formats below turn those patterns into practical starting points teams can adapt by audience, goal, and stage of onboarding.
Use them as flexible structures rather than fixed scripts. Each one is designed to keep the message focused, make the next step clear, and support repeatable onboarding across teams, roles, and locations.
Welcome and company introduction
Audience: New hires or new users
Goal: Introduce the organization, set expectations, and create a clear starting point
▶️ Format to borrow: a short welcome video that covers who you are, what matters most, and what happens next. This format works best when it feels simple and human rather than overly polished or overloaded with detail. Use it to orient people at the start of the journey and direct them to the right hub, manager, or first action.
Suggested flow:
- Welcome and introduction
- What the organization values
- What happens in the first week
- Where to go next
Suggested CTA: Complete your HRIS profile and book your first manager check-in.
Role onboarding
Audience: New hires in a specific function or team
Goal: Help people understand what success looks like in the role and what they need to do first
▶️ Format to borrow: a role-specific onboarding video that introduces priorities, tools, workflows, and early deliverables. This is often where a reusable video template (like the one below) adds the most value, because teams can keep the same structure while tailoring examples, language, and next steps by role.
Suggested flow:
- What this role is responsible for
- What success looks like in the first 30, 60, or 90 days
- Key tools and workflows
- First deliverables or milestones
- Where to go for support
Suggested CTA: Complete the role checklist and review your first-week priorities with your manager.
Product activation
Audience: New hires needing specific tools
Goal: Help people reach value quickly by completing the first meaningful task
▶️ Format to borrow: a short activation video that shows the first task, removes friction, and points to the next step. This format works best when it is tightly scoped and tied to a specific outcome, such as setting up an account, connecting a data source, or creating a first project.
Suggested flow:
- What the viewer will accomplish
- Quick product or workflow walkthrough
- Common mistakes to avoid
- What to do next
Suggested CTA: Complete the first setup step and move to the next milestone.
Compliance or safety onboarding
Audience: New hires who need to follow a required process
Goal: Deliver critical information clearly and consistently while reducing risk
▶️ Format to borrow: a structured compliance or safety video that explains what matters, what to do, and what happens if something goes wrong. This format should be direct, easy to revisit, and built for regular updates as policies change.
Suggested flow:
- Why the topic matters
- Required steps or expected behaviors
- What to avoid
- Reporting, escalation, or consequences
- Quick knowledge check
Suggested CTA: Complete the quiz and acknowledge the policy.
Manager onboarding
Audience: New hires who are managers or team leads
Goal: Help managers understand expectations, team rituals, and support responsibilities early on
▶️ Format to borrow: a manager onboarding video that explains how to lead in the organization. This format is especially useful when companies want more consistency in how new managers run meetings, give feedback, or support new hires.
Suggested flow:
- What managers are expected to own
- Team rituals and communication norms
- First 30 days as a manager
- Tools for feedback and performance support
- Where to find resources or escalation paths
Suggested CTA: Schedule onboarding 1:1s and review the manager checklist.
How to create an effective onboarding video in minutes
Once you choose the right format, the next step is to turn it into a focused video that helps someone succeed in a new environment. The strongest onboarding videos are built around one audience, one goal, and one next step.
Use the FOCA (Foundation, Organization, Content, and Action) framework. FOCA is designed to make video creation more systematic by helping you define the audience, structure the information, script the video clearly, and end with a specific next step.
1. Start with the foundation
Define who the video is for and what success looks like after watching it. FOCA begins with audience understanding and usefulness, not production.
Ask:
- Who is this video for?
- What do they need to know right now?
- What should they be able to do next?
For onboarding, that usually means choosing a single job-to-be-done, such as:
- Complete a first task
- Understand a key policy
- Set up the right tools
- Know where to go for support
This matters because onboarding content breaks down when it tries to solve too many problems at once. The internal framing for onboarding is also clear: the real challenge is often message drift and early adoption, especially across teams, regions, and managers.
2. Organize the video around a simple structure
Once the audience and outcome are clear, shape the video into a structure that is easy to follow. FOCA treats organization as the step where you turn information into a format that works for video. It recommends being able to explain the structure in 2–5 clear points.
For most onboarding videos, a simple structure works best:
- What this is about
- What matters most
- What to do next
If the topic is more complex, break it into short modules instead of one long video. That makes onboarding easier to update, easier to localize, and easier to reuse.
3. Write for clarity
The content step is where you script and visualize the message. FOCA frames this as a question: are your visuals supporting the script, or just decorating it?
A few rules help here:
- Keep the script tight and specific
- Show the action instead of describing it abstractly
- Use on-screen text to reinforce key points, not repeat the narration
- Focus on what the viewer needs to do, not everything the organization wants to say
This is especially important in enterprise onboarding. Speed matters, but your internal guidance is explicit that speed is not the end goal. The point is to translate faster production into clearer understanding, stronger adoption, and measurable performance improvement.
4. End with action
Every onboarding video should make the next step obvious. In FOCA, Action is about deciding what viewers should remember and what they should do next.
That next step might be:
- Complete a checklist
- Sign into a system
- Book a manager check-in
- Finish a quiz
- Move to the next module
A good onboarding video reduces uncertainty. A great onboarding video also moves people forward.
Many organizations structure onboarding as a series of short, purpose-driven videos. Criteo uses this approach to deliver consistent messages to new hires across teams and locations, helping employees ramp faster while reinforcing a shared understanding of how the company works.
How should you measure onboarding video success?
The right metric depends on the job the video is supposed to do. For some videos, success means completion. For others, it means faster activation, fewer support questions, or stronger manager confidence.
Use a combination of:
- Completion rate
- Knowledge checks
- Time-to-first-task or time-to-productivity
- Manager or employee feedback
- Repeat support volume
Once you know how to structure and evaluate onboarding videos, the next step is choosing the tools that help you create and manage them effectively.
What are the best tools for making onboarding videos?
The best onboarding video tools depend on what you need to make. Some teams need a fast way to create polished videos. Others need screen recordings for product walkthroughs or a place to organize and share everything.
For most teams, three tools matter most: one to create the video, one to record demos if needed, and one to host the final content.
- Video creation: Tools like Synthesia help teams create onboarding videos quickly, keep branding consistent, and update content without starting from scratch. They also make it easier to localize videos for different teams or regions.
- Screen recording and walkthroughs: For product onboarding or process training, screen recording tools are useful when you need to show exactly what to click, where to go, or how a workflow works.
- Hosting and distribution: Onboarding videos need a clear home, whether that is an LMS, an intranet, a help center, or an in-product resource hub. The main thing is that people can find the right video when they need it.
The tool matters less than the setup around it. A good onboarding system makes videos easy to create, easy to update, and easy to find.
💡 Building an onboarding program?
Start with our onboarding script guide to shape the message, use our onboarding checklist to plan the rollout, and review the new employee onboarding process guide for key checkpoints across the full experience.
About the author
Strategic Advisor
Kevin Alster
Kevin Alster is a Strategic Advisor at Synthesia, where he helps global enterprises apply generative AI to improve learning, communication, and organizational performance. His work focuses on translating emerging technology into practical business solutions that scale.He brings over a decade of experience in education, learning design, and media innovation, having developed enterprise programs for organizations such as General Assembly, The School of The New York Times, and Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Kevin combines creative thinking with structured problem-solving to help companies build the capabilities they need to adapt and grow.
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faq
Frequently asked questions
What is an onboarding video?
An onboarding video is a focused video created to help someone succeed at the start of a new experience. It explains expectations, key steps, or required behaviors and points to the next action. Onboarding videos are used for employees (orientation, role training, compliance) and customers (product setup, safety, activation).
What are common types of onboarding videos?
Common types include welcome or culture videos, role-specific training, compliance and safety modules, software or workflow walkthroughs, product activation tutorials, and customer setup guides. Each type targets a single job-to-be-done and is best delivered as short, modular episodes rather than a single long video.
How long should an onboarding video be?
Keep individual onboarding videos short: 2–7 minutes for focused topics. For complex topics, split content into modular chapters so viewers can find and rewatch exactly what they need. Shorter modules increase completion and retention.
How do you choose between employee and customer onboarding formats?
Start with the audience and the desired outcome. Employees usually need context, policy, and role-specific actions; customers need activation steps and immediate value. Design both formats around a single first-time success metric (e.g., “complete profile,” “perform first task,” or “understand safety steps”).
Where should onboarding videos live and how should they be distributed?
House videos in a single, discoverable hub — LMS, LXP, intranet/SharePoint, or a product help center — so versions are easy to manage. Distribute through email, Slack/Teams, LMS assignments, and in-product prompts. Use the distribution channel that best matches when and where the audience needs the content.
How do you measure onboarding video effectiveness?
Measure outcomes: completion rates, knowledge checks, time-to-first-task (or time-to-productivity), activation or retention metrics, and manager or customer feedback. Use pre/post surveys and simple quizzes to validate comprehension and connect video metrics to business outcomes.
How often should onboarding videos be updated?
Review and update onboarding videos on a regular cadence tied to change risk — e.g., policy or product changes trigger immediate updates; everything else on a 6–12 month cycle. Maintain versioning and an owner for each video so updates are tracked and approved.
Can the same onboarding video serve employees and customers?
Generally no — employees and customers have different goals and contexts. However, the same structure and production patterns (short modules, clear next step, versioning) apply. Reuse visual assets or scripts where appropriate, but tailor messaging and calls to action for the specific audience.
