HeyGen launches Seedance 2.0

HeyGen has rolled out Seedance 2.0 across its platform, adding a new video engine for cinematic avatar scenes and prompt-based b-roll on April 7. (heygen.com) The company said Seedance 2.0 now powers three HeyGen tools: Avatar Shots, Video Agent, and its AI Video Generator. In Avatar Shots, users can place multiple verified digital twins in one scene with synchronized motion and fixed character consistency across cuts. (heygen.com) HeyGen said Video Agent can turn a prompt or script into a finished video up to three minutes long, blending Seedance footage with avatar scenes and voiceover automatically. The company’s pricing page lists a free tier, a Creator plan at $29 a month, and a Pro plan at $99 a month. (heygen.com 1) (heygen.com 2) Seedance itself is a video model from ByteDance’s Seed team that accepts text, image, audio, and video inputs and is designed to control camera movement, lighting, shadow, and performance. ByteDance says the model also supports joint audio-video generation and reference-based editing. (seed.bytedance.com) HeyGen’s distinction is not that it built Seedance, but that it wrapped the model into a commercial avatar product with identity checks. HeyGen says Seedance does not allow human faces on its public application programming interface, and that HeyGen’s consent and verification system is what lets customers use verified human likenesses inside Seedance-generated footage. (heygen.com 1) (heygen.com 2) That matters in the current AI video market because many tools can generate clips, but fewer let a specific person’s avatar move through a multi-shot scene without visible drift in face, clothes, or motion. HeyGen is pitching Seedance 2.0 as a way to move beyond the static talking-head format that has dominated business avatar videos. (heygen.com 1) (heygen.com 2) The launch lands days after HeyGen said it raised a $60 million Series A round led by Benchmark and had grown to more than $35 million in annual recurring revenue, with profitability reached in the second quarter of 2023. HeyGen also said its valuation is now above $500 million. (heygen.com) HeyGen followed the release with a live walkthrough on April 7 featuring product manager Adam Halper and Brandon Satterfield, then posted the replay in its community hub. The company has also scheduled another livestream for April 15 around Avatar V, signaling that HeyGen is stacking major avatar updates within the same month. (community.heygen.com) (community.heygen.com) The immediate test is whether creators and marketing teams treat Seedance 2.0 as a novelty or as a replacement for parts of a live-action shoot. HeyGen is betting that verified faces, multi-character scenes, and one-prompt video assembly are enough to make that shift stick. (heygen.com) (heygen.com)