YouTube rolls out more natural auto-dubbing, adds language controls

YouTube announced on Thursday that it has rolled out new updates to its auto-dubbing tool, expanding language support and making dubbed videos sound more natural, while giving both viewers and creators more control over how content is experienced.

Auto-dubbing on YouTube is now available to everyone and supports 27 languages. The company says more than 6 million users, on average, watched at least 10 minutes of auto-dubbed content each day in December — a sign that viewers are increasingly comfortable watching videos beyond their native language.

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To make dubbed videos feel less robotic, YouTube has introduced “Expressive Speech” in eight languages, including English, Hindi, French and Spanish, in an atempt to better preserve a creator’s tone and emotion. The platform is also testing a lip-sync feature that subtly matches translated audio with a speaker’s mouth movements.

Viewers are getting more control too. A new Preferred Language setting allows users to choose whether they want to watch a video in its original language or a dubbed version, instead of relying solely on YouTube’s automatic language selection.

Creators, meanwhile, get tools to stay in charge. YouTube says smart filters can detect when videos shouldn’t be dubbed, such as music-only content or silent vlogs. Auto-dubbing won’t hurt a video’s reach, the company says, and could even help it find audiences in new regions. Creators can also upload their own dubs or turn the feature off entirely.

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YouTube’s push comes as Meta is also expanding AI-powered translations across Facebook and Instagram. In January, Meta began rolling out Reel translations in more Indian languages, including Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Kannada, building on existing support for English, Hindi, Portuguese and Spanish.

Meta’s AI translation tool automatically dubs and lip-syncs Reels using a creator’s own voice, and allows creators to review or remove translations at any time. The feature is available to Facebook creators with over 1,000 followers and all public Instagram accounts.