The new YouTube tool that breaks language barriers

YouTube has taken a significant step in its evolution by implementing a multilingual audio feature that will allow creators to add audio in multiple languages to their videos. This new functionality, announced in a blog post, has been developed over two years and is expected to be fully implemented in the coming weeks. With this tool, YouTube aims to help creators reach a broader global audience, thus eliminating the language barriers that often limit the reach of their content.

Goodbye to the language barrier that prevented you from watching some videos

The feature is based on Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence, which is responsible for recreating not only the voice but also the emotions of the creator to achieve translations that feel authentic. Creators will have two dubbing options available: manual and automatic. In the case of manual dubbing, creators can upload their own voices or hire professionals, while the automatic option uses machine translation and synthetic voices. The latter will be enabled by default on some channels, although creators will have the option to review it before publication.

In this initial release, the automatic dubbing will translate videos from English to Japanese, Hindi, Spanish, and Korean, with the possibility of adding more languages in the future. However, YouTube warns that the system may not capture subtle tones, idiomatic expressions, or proper names, so creators who require accurate translations may prefer manual voices.

Success stories have already begun to emerge; for example, certain creators who have used this feature have reported that more than 25% of their watch time came from viewers who spoke other languages. In particular, chef Jamie Oliver’s channel saw its audience triple after implementing dubbed tracks, highlighting the potential of this innovative tool.