In a world increasingly dominated by automated voices and generated content, we often get asked: “How does Revolution Lightboards use AI?” OR "Is AI a part of your product offering at Revolution?

It is a huge topic, but here’s where the rubber meets the road for Revolution: our answer is simple. We believe AI is a powerful assistant, but we still emphasize human connection and organic content creation with our systems. While you can leverage preferred AI tools on our systems, there are no AI tools embedded in our products. 

Under the Hood with Revolution

Internally, we embrace AI as a productivity work aide. Heck, we began this resource with help from Gemini. It helped us organize these thoughts, but everything you're reading was heavily reviewed, edited, and approved by our human team. When we’re developing a new support guide or looking for a fresh way to explain a technical concept, we use AI to:

• Kickstart Creativity: It helps us break through "blank page syndrome" by generating initial lists of ideas or topics.

• Refine Documentation: It assists in checking for clarity, ensuring our resources are as helpful as possible for you.

• Iterate Faster: We use it to simulate different perspectives, asking, "How would a first-time user see this?"

By using AI in a hybrid fashion to support organization and ideation, our team has more time to focus on what matters: engineering high-quality products and providing personalized coaching and support to our customers.

Which AI Tools We Use

AI Chatbots & LLMs are evolving quickly, but our team's personal favorites:

• ChatGPT - A versatile general-purpose tool with high market share for good reason. It's often the simplest, most conversational platform to interact with. There are paid versions with more advanced functions and data protections; free versions which lack that protection.

• Gemini (Google) - For anyone working within the Google ecosystem, Gemini offers consistency with shared documents and spreadsheets. It’s a go-to for help finding specific details buried in research, making a small edit to an image, and a starting point for written content. Paid Google accounts through Google Education, Workspace, or Google Enterprise bring commercial data protections which free accounts lack.

• Microsoft Copilot - comes integrated into Windows 11 so is very accessible to many users. Note, the free default service integrated into Windows lacks commercial data protection which is important for privacy. Paid subscription levels are available to add that protection. Note, Microsoft rebranded "Bing Chat" simply to Copilot.

In the Studio: The Hybrid Power of AI and Human Connection

We know that when it comes to education, specifically the delivery, nothing replaces the human element. One of the most consistent pieces of feedback we receive from our customers is a sense of relief that our tools are distinctly not AI.

However, most presentations have two stages: preparation and delivery. Typically, the time spent in preparation is far greater than the time in delivery. AI can assist substantially in the preparation phase as a tool to help draft or refine content. Using AI to help structure a presentation YOU deliver is a Win-Win.

In an era of AI-generated media and automated lectures, our studios allow users to stand for something different: Authenticity.

• Real Teachers, Real Students: Our tools are designed to amplify the instructor, not replace them. When you see a teacher's facial expressions and hand gestures through the glass, you aren’t just receiving data—you’re experiencing a connection.

• Handcrafted Lessons: There is a unique cognitive value in watching a human draw out a concept in real-time. It moves at the speed of thought, allowing students to follow the logic step-by-step.

• Human Nuance: Real-life topics—especially complex ones in STEM, medicine, or business—require empathy, storytelling, and the ability to pivot based on a student’s needs. AI can summarize, but a human inspires.

Avatars

There are a myriad of platforms that offer AI-generated avatars to present content, including many where you can make an avatar of yourself. The promise sounds intriguing: write a presentation paste it into their program and seconds later out comes a video of you speaking perfectly with no errors.

However, if a viewer spends mental energy trying to figure out if your lips match your words or why your eyes aren't blinking naturally (the 'Uncanny Valley' effect), they aren't spending that energy learning your content. In education, clarity is king, and any technical distraction is a hurdle to retention.

Part of the success of our video systems is that the videos they produce actually reduce cognitive load. Because the presenter and the content naturally exist together in one field of view, viewers don't have to look back and forth between the presenter and content like a slide. Eliminating the 'split-attention effect,' allows the brain to focus entirely on the lesson rather than navigating the screen.

Of course not all messages need to come from a human, and cartoon avatars can be an easier option where viewers will know there is no confusion of who is doing the presenting-a human or an avatar.

Feature	AI-Generated Avatar	Revolution Lightboard
Viewer Connection	Synthetic & potentially distracting	Authentic & high-trust
Best Use Case	Low-stakes, administrative updates	Lectures, Training, & Sales
Content Style	Text-heavy slides	Dynamic drawing & storytelling
Cognitive Load	High (split attention)	Low (single field of view)
Outcome	Information Transfer	Inspiration & Retention

Voiceovers and Captions

AI voiceover tools and captioning tools are basically the same process happening in reverse order.

Auto-generated captions have been around since far before "AI" was a buzzword, and they have increased accessibility of video content notably. Similarly voice-generating programs have been used to allow text to be heard instead of read for many years. Both can deliver notable productivity boosts in the right applications.

The quality of the audio has now substantially improved. If you use an AI voice, be sure to use a high-quality 'Neural' voice—they handle the cadence of speech much more naturally than older text-to-speech tools

Generally, the risks of using AI-generated voiceovers are quite a bit lower than AI-generated video. Simply put, audio is incredibly simpler than video since it doesn't contain all of the much more nuanced body language of a person.

Like any AI generated content, the output should be reviewed for mistakes which can then be corrected to deliver the best end result possible.

Privacy

You should always be mindful to not input proprietary information or sensitive data into public AI tools where the AI platform may use your data however they wish. To be clear, there is no AI embedded into the systems that Revolution provides. 

The Bottom Line

At Revolution Lightboards, in many ways we look at AI as the next innovation in the evolution of web searching. These tools will continue to evolve and improve. We use AI tools to help us operate more efficiently, and we think you should too.

In all cases, it's critical to check sources, treat anything AI-generated as a rough first draft at best, and review everything heavily. Critical thinking skills are increasingly important when working with AI.

There are some messages that are perfectly acceptable to send via one sentence in text message or an email. But many messages are far more powerful when we can watch them coming from a real human being who has developed our trust.

We strive to help you create engaging videos as easily as possible so that you can build a better connection with your audience.

When you automate the delivery of your message, you risk automating away the very thing that makes your brand valuable: your unique perspective and personality. Use AI to develop and sharpen your script, then get in front of the camera to share it. Because at the end of the day, Revolution believes it doesn't get better than a human educating another human.

What's Next?

Ready to try the hybrid approach? Ask your favorite AI tool: 'I am recording a 5-minute Lightboard video on [Your Topic]. Give me an outline with 3 key points and a suggestion for one visual diagram I can draw on the glass to explain the hardest concept.

P.S. If you use AI to generate a diagram idea, we’d love to see it! Tag us in your next video so we can see how you’re blending AI-assisted prep with human-delivered lessons.