Every market moves differently. Different languages. Different expectations. Different partners. Yet every Sage partner wants the same thing - an experience that’s built for them. Sage came to us as they want to onboard partners across multiple regions, increasing their time to market, whilst localising the content.
We set out to transform a traditional onboarding framework into a seamless digital journey. A faster, clearer path to market for Sage partners. Sage has one of the world's largest accounting partner networks. Getting new partners productive quickly is a real operational problem. Whether a partner is based in London, Paris or Vancouver the experience needs to be consistent.
The traditional approach is expensive and slow. You film content, it goes out of date, you film it again. You enter a new market, you localise, you rebuild. The budget compounds and the quality still varies. We were asked to find a better way.
A video series featuring AI-generated mentors (avatars), styled to Sage's brand and set inside their actual offices. The characters were built to feel like part of the team, each with their own specialist skill, designed to guide partners along their onboarding journey.
New partners get a welcome that feels considered and local. When Sage needs to update the content or add a new language, it takes hours rather than months. The cost of a new market doesn't require a new production.
Partner onboarding tends to fall in a gap between teams. Not quite marketing, not quite HR, not quite ops. So it often gets less attention than it should, and the experience suffers. The first thing a new partner sees from your brand sets a tone. A generic PDF or a recording from a couple of years ago sends a message, just not always the one you intended. AI gen video won't solve everything, but it does make it a lot easier to produce something that actually reflects your brand, consistently, without the kind of budget that's usually required to get there.
The technology is only part of it. Poorly directed AI avatars are unconvincing and people clock them immediately. The creative decisions around how a character looks, where they're placed, how they speak, matter as much as they always have in production.
Setting the avatar inside Sage's actual office rather than a neutral background made a bigger difference than we expected. It's a small thing on paper but it changes how the viewer relates to what they're watching.
The localisation side is where the practical case gets interesting. Once the system is in place, a new language or regional version takes hours rather than a new shoot. That changes the economics significantly for any brand operating across multiple markets.
We're now building out a wider onboarding platform for Sage, where the video series sits alongside AI chat support and real-time video responses to partner questions. It's an ongoing project, which has been very insightful.
If you're thinking about what AI video production could do for your brand, talk to us.
