One of the best things about the E-Learning Heroes community is how much you—our members—shape what we build here at Articulate. Your feedback, feature requests, and participation in beta testing inspire us every day.
This quarter, we’re excited to roll out a bunch of new features across Rise, Storyline, and Reach that were inspired by your collective commitment to accessibility.
We’ve heard from many of you that while you know accessibility is important, it can be challenging to implement. That’s why we’ve focused on making it easier for you to create inclusive e-learning, with features like an accessibility checker and AI-generated alt text, captions, and transcripts.
Huge shout-out to the 90 community members who joined the Accessibility Checker Early Access group! Your insights have been incredibly valuable. This quote from Mandy Logsdon, Developer and WCAG Specialist, Artisan Learning really made our day:
“I have to say, the ‘custom alt text added’ issue callout and the layer that opens to fix it had me literally jumping around in my office chair with joy! I do a lot of compliance testing at my company, reviewing other people’s work, and this one feature alone is going to save me hours.”
Read on to get a closer look at what’s new and join us for a webinar with David Anderson on July 22nd at 11 a.m. E.T. to see these updates in action: Register for the Q2 2025 What’s New webinar.
Rise
This quarter, Rise got a serious glow-up with seven new features, two enhancements, and a couple of behind-the-scenes fixes. We’ve included the highlights below, but if you’d like to check out the full list, head over to the Rise Version History.
AI Text-to-Speech
Recording narration can be time-consuming. And re-recording when updates happen is even harder. With AI-generated text-to-speech, you can add narration by simply typing, pasting in, or AI-generating your voice-over script, choosing your voice settings, and hitting a button. In just a few seconds, you’re done.
To learn more, check out this article: AI Assistant in Rise 360: AI Generated Text-to-Speech.
Expanded Audio
In addition to making it easier to create audio, we’ve also made it easier to incorporate it into your courses by adding audio support to 22 additional blocks, including carousel, tabs, and accordion blocks. Whether you’re uploading your own clips or using AI-generated narration, it’s never been easier to engage learners!
Want more details? Read the full article: Rise 360: Manage Course Audio.
AudioTranscriptions
Providing transcripts for audio narration is a key part of accessibility. With the new transcript feature in Rise, it’s easy! Whether you use AI to generate a transcript automatically or upload your own, in just a few seconds, you can give learners the power to follow along with on-screen text that appears by clicking the microphone icon next to the audio file.
You can find step-by-step info in this article: Rise 360: Manage Course Media.
Voice Library
Sometimes, the biggest challenge isn’t creating narration—it’s finding the right voice. Now you’ve got access to thousands of ultra-realistic AI voice options you can filter by age, gender, category, and use case, so it’s easy to find the right one for your brand and subject matter.
Get the full scoop here: AI Assistant in Rise 360: AI Generated Text-to-Speech.
AI Script Writer
If you’re short on time or writing narration isn’t your strong suit, AI Assistant can help you draft or refine scripts so they sound natural when read out loud. Writing engaging voice-over scripts has never been easier!
Dig into the details in this article: AI Assistant in Rise 360: AI Generated Text-to-Speech.
New Assistive Technology Support for Rise
Rise now works with Microsoft’s Narrator screen reader and Magnifier, so learners using assistive technologies can better access your content. It’s another meaningful step toward more inclusive courses.
Storyline
Storyline also got a hefty round of upgrades this quarter—6 new features, 11 enhancements, and 11 bug fixes! Here’s a peek at the ones we think you’ll be the most excited about. And if you want to dig into every single update, be sure to check out the Storyline Version History.
Accessibility Checker
Making courses accessible is important, but spotting what’s missing can be tough. The new accessibility checker highlights issues like missing captions or inaccessible playback settings, so you can fix them quickly before delivering to learners. You can even generate missing custom alt text right in the checker with AI Assistant. It’s never been easier to create accessible courses!
See how our accessibility checker works by watching this video by David Anderson, and read more in this article: Storyline 360: Improving Experiences with the Accessibility Checker.
AI-Generated Captions
Captions are essential for learners with hearing loss or for anyone learning on mute. With this update, AI can generate and sync captions for your audio and video content, so you don’t have to do it manually. Such a timesaver!
This article breaks down how it works: AI Assistant in Storyline 360: AI-Generated Captions.
AI-Generated Alt Text
Writing meaningful alt text takes effort. The AI Assistant can now draft alt text for images and slide objects in just a few clicks. From there, you can review, edit, or approve the suggestions to ensure accuracy.
Need help getting started? Head over to: AI Assistant in Storyline 360: AI-generated Alt Text Suggestion.
Merge Shapes
Creating custom visuals used to require bouncing between apps. Now, you can merge basic shapes right in Storyline to build unique graphics—no PowerPoint workarounds needed.
Check out this article for a closer look: Storyline 360: Applying Merge Shapes.
Adjust Corner Radius
Design tweaks like rounded corners help with brand consistency, but they’re hard to apply evenly without precise controls. Now you can set exact corner radius values for any object—no more eyeballing it.
Read all about it here: Storyline 360: Corner Radius Formatting.
Additional Emphasis Animations
Need to guide learner attention or add a little motion to your slides? We just added seven new emphasis animations to Storyline, like float, rotate, and bounce—giving you more ways to bring your content to life.
Want to see how others are using emphasis animations? Check out this E-Learning Challenge: Using Emphasis Animations to Grab Learners’ Attention #449
And for more details on using this new feature, check out this article: Storyline 360: Emphasis Animations.
New Assistive Technology Support for Storyline
Like in Rise, we’ve added support in Storyline for Microsoft’s Narrator and Magnifier. This means more learners can successfully navigate your courses using the tools they rely on.
Reach
Check out the most exciting new features and enhancements for Reach below and head over to the Reach Version History page for all the details.
Additional Learner Interface Languages
Delivering a consistent experience in multiple languages can be tricky when the LMS interface doesn’t match your course content. That’s why we added five new languages to Reach—Chinese (Simplified), Italian, Japanese, Polish, and Korean—so more learners can navigate the platform in their native language.
Unpack the details in this article: Reach Learner Interface Languages.
Manual Course Completion
Sometimes learners finish outside of the LMS, or you need to override their progress. You can now manually mark courses as complete or enter quiz scores directly from either the learner view or course view—making admin tasks much more flexible.
Learn how this works in this helpful article: Reach: Manually Update Completion.
Wrap-Up
We’re absolutely thrilled about these new features, and we hope you are, too. Which ones are you most excited to try out? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below. We can’t wait to hear from you!
Feeling creative? Inspire others by showing them how you’re using these new features on the Share Examples page. We can’t wait to see what you create!
And if you have ideas for new features, we’d love to hear them! Head over to the Suggest Ideas page to share your thoughts. We’re always looking for ways to improve.
