What Is Webinar?

A webinar is a live online presentation or seminar delivered through video conferencing software, typically combining a presenter speaking over slide content with interactive features like audience Q&A, chat, polls, and downloadable resources. The format has been a workhorse of corporate training, marketing, and professional development for two decades — it offers the engagement of a live event with the scale and accessibility of online delivery. Webinars work particularly well for product launches, expert thought-leadership sessions, customer training programs, sales-team enablement, and ongoing professional development for distributed audiences. The most effective webinars combine well-designed slides, an engaging presenter, structured Q&A windows, polls and chat to maintain attention, recording for asynchronous viewing, and a follow-up email with the recording and resources. Webinar platforms range from general-purpose video conferencing (Zoom Webinars, Microsoft Teams Live Events) to specialized platforms with marketing automation and lead capture (Demio, Livestorm, ON24). Modern LMS platforms increasingly include native webinar capabilities, eliminating the need for separate platforms and enabling the webinar to be embedded in a broader course or training context. Arythmatic's native live sessions support webinar use cases with screen sharing, recording, attendance tracking, polls, chat, and integrated registration.