Udemy Expands AI Role Play With Immersive Video Avatars and Greater Customisation — Scaling Soft Skills Practice Across the Enterprise
Udemy (Nasdaq: UDMY; San Francisco; a leading AI-powered skills acceleration platform; President and CEO Hugo Sarrazin; serving thousands of companies including Samsung SDS America, Tata Consultancy Services, The World Bank, and Volkswagen; hubs across the US, Australia, India, Ireland, Mexico, and Türkiye), has announced expanded capabilities for Role Play — its AI-powered learning experience designed to help learners build real-world professional skills through immersive practice scenarios. The two new enhancements are greater customisation — enabling organisations to tailor Role Play scenarios to specific roles, industries, and skill levels — and immersive video, introducing lifelike AI avatars that make practice more realistic and help learners apply skills more effectively at scale.
Since its initial launch, Role Play has enabled more than 400,000 interactive simulations across leadership, communication, and professional development — and as of April 2026, adoption continues to grow strongly across both marketplace and enterprise content. The platform has been recognised by Fast Company's Next Big Things in Tech, and is now available as AI Role Play Enhanced — an add-on to the Udemy Business Enterprise Plan for organisations that want to deploy organisation-specific scenarios with interactive video avatars.
"Developing certain professional skills requires practice in environments that mirror the real world. By expanding our Role Play capabilities with greater customisation and immersive video, we're helping organisations and individuals turn learning into action, building confidence and capability in the moments that matter most."
— Hugo Sarrazin, President and Chief Executive Officer, UdemyHow Role Play Works — AI Personas, Real-Time Adaptation, and Personalised Learner Reports
Role Play places learners inside realistic workplace scenarios — the AI takes on a role-specific persona such as a hiring manager, stakeholder, or customer, and stays in character throughout. The learner responds naturally while the AI adapts in real time, keeping the conversation on track. Instructors define objectives and constraints, and with Create with AI, can generate scenarios quickly by answering a few questions and linking relevant course lectures. At the end of each session, learners receive a personalised report — covering goal completion, per-goal feedback with strengths and actionable tips, an improved transcript that highlights weaker responses and pairs them with stronger alternatives, and a composite score out of 100 with detailed breakdowns across goal completion, tone, and contextual relevance. Practice scenarios cover pitching new business ideas, negotiating, resolving conflicts, providing feedback, coaching, delegating, managing projects, and interview preparation.
"Adding immersive video and customisation to our Role Play technology strengthens Udemy's ability to deliver learning that translates directly to on-the-job performance. With these enhancements, Udemy's Role Play technology can be even more impactful in enabling learners to build communication skills, executive presence, and decision-making under pressure."
— Hugo Sarrazin, President and Chief Executive Officer, UdemyUdemy's Broader AI Learning Strategy — Role Play, Altus, and the Skills Acceleration Platform
The Role Play expansion builds on Udemy's broader strategy to advance AI-powered learning experiences that are practical, scalable, and aligned with workforce needs. In March 2026, Udemy previewed Altus — its agentic AI solution designed to diagnose skills gaps and build workforce capability autonomously. Earlier in 2026, Udemy launched an end-to-end certification journey for AWS certifications and expanded its Microsoft certification pathway with more than 50 Microsoft exam vouchers available directly on the platform — complementing its 10,000+ Microsoft courses. Together, Role Play Enhanced, Altus, and the certification expansion represent Udemy's full-spectrum AI learning strategy: immersive skill practice, agentic skills gap diagnosis, and credentialled outcome pathways — all in a single platform built for enterprise scale.
Udemy expands AI Role Play with two new enhancements. Nasdaq: UDMY; San Francisco; President and CEO Hugo Sarrazin; AI-powered skills acceleration platform; thousands of enterprise customers including Samsung SDS America, TCS, The World Bank, Volkswagen. Announced 7 May 2026. Two enhancements: (1) Greater customisation — tailor scenarios to specific roles, industries, and skill levels. (2) Immersive video — lifelike AI avatars making practice more realistic at scale. Available as AI Role Play Enhanced add-on to the Enterprise Plan. business.udemy.com/ai.
Role Play platform mechanics and learner experience. AI takes on a role-specific persona (hiring manager, stakeholder, customer) and stays in character throughout. Learner responds naturally; AI adapts in real time. Instructors define objectives and constraints; Create with AI generates scenarios from a few questions linked to course lectures. Personalised end-of-session report: goal completion; per-goal feedback (strengths+tips); improved transcript with weaker responses paired against stronger alternatives; composite score out of 100 (goal completion+tone+contextual relevance). Practice scenarios: pitching, negotiating, conflict resolution, feedback, coaching, delegation, project management, interview preparation.
Traction and recognition since launch. 400,000+ interactive simulations completed across leadership, communication, and professional development since initial launch. Strong adoption growth through April 2026 across both marketplace and enterprise content. Learners actively returning to practice and refine skills — indicating repeatable engagement beyond one-time use. Recognised by Fast Company's Next Big Things in Tech. Original Role Play launched May 2025 in partnership with ElevenLabs — six distinct AI characters with customisable voices, tones, and accents.
Udemy's broader 2026 AI learning strategy. Role Play Enhanced (May 2026) + Altus agentic AI solution previewed (March 2026 — diagnoses skills gaps and builds workforce capability) + AWS end-to-end certification journey (February 2026) + 50+ Microsoft exam vouchers + 10,000+ Microsoft courses. Full-spectrum strategy: immersive skill practice (Role Play) + agentic skills gap diagnosis (Altus) + credentialled outcome pathways (AWS/Microsoft certifications). Innovation Studio (launched 2025) drives continuous AI learning experience development.
Strategic significance — from content consumption to skills practice at scale. The soft skills development market has long struggled with a fundamental problem: knowing about a skill (from a video course) and being able to perform it under pressure are entirely different things. Role Play's immersive video with AI avatars and role-specific customisation closes this gap — moving enterprise learning from passive consumption to active, repeatable, scored practice that mirrors the exact situations employees face. The 400,000+ simulation milestone and repeat engagement patterns validate that learners are using this as a genuine practice environment, not just a novelty. For L&D leaders, this positions Udemy not just as a content library but as a skills execution platform.