YouTube has announced the full launch of its multilingual audio feature, which allows creators to add dubbing to their videos in multiple languages, TechCrunch reports. The feature will be available to all creators in the coming weeks.
The feature first appeared in 2023 as part of a pilot project with a limited number of creators, including bloggers MrBeast, Marc Robert, and chef Jamie Oliver. Before that, content creators worked with third-party dubbing services, but later YouTube integrated an automated voiceover and translation tool based on Google Gemini technology. This system is able to reproduce the intonation and emotions of the author during translation.
According to the company, creators saw an increase in views during testing. On average, more than 25% of the time spent watching videos with multilingual tracks was in languages other than the primary language. Jamie Oliver's channel tripled its views after implementing the feature.
Additionally, YouTube has been testing multilingual thumbnails for videos since June, allowing selected creators to customize their preview images with text in the language of the viewer's choice.
It was previously reported that YouTube will tighten control over the use of Premium family subscriptions.