YouTube Begins Global Rollout of Multi-Language Audio Dubbing Feature for Creators

YouTube is finally rolling out a creator-focused feature that has been in the testing phase for the last two years. Dubbed multi-language audio, it is essentially a dubbing feature that lets video creators upload their videos in multiple languages without resorting to multiple uploads or creating multiple channels. The Google-owned streaming giant is now making the feature available to all creators globally. However, it should be noted that YouTube's feature does not automatically dub the videos, and instead, users will have to add separate audio tracks manually.

YouTube Is Now Letting Creators Upload Videos With Multi-Language Audio Tracks

In a blog post, YouTube announced the global rollout of the feature. The company first began its pilot test with a small number of creators in February 2023. During the last two years, creators such as Mark Rober, MrBeast, Jamie Oliver, and Nick DiGiovanni have had access to multi-language audio and have been releasing videos with more than one audio track.

It is easy to mistake this as an artificial intelligence (AI) feature where YouTube uses an audio model to generate audio in multiple languages; however, that is not the case here. Creators who want to upload their videos in multiple languages will have to manually record those tracks and add them to the video via the Subtitles Editor tool. Additional tracks can also be added to existing videos.

Multi-language audio feature in YouTuber Mark Rober's video
Photo Credit: YouTube/Mark Rober

Viewers who want to watch a video in their native language (as long as the creator has added the audio track) can simply click the Settings icon at the bottom of the video player, go to the Audio Track option, and select the language from the list. By default, YouTube will match videos with the viewer's preferred language.

Highlighting the benefits of uploading videos in multiple languages, YouTube claimed that creators uploading multi-language audio tracks to their videos found that more than 25 percent of their watch time came from views in the video's non-primary language. It also claimed that Jamie Oliver was able to increase his views by 3X after using the feature.

The streaming giant is heavily focusing on localising content for its user base. YouTube added that it has started another test involving multi-language thumbnails with a select group of creators. With this, creators will be able to add different thumbnails (with localised text or other nuances) based on viewers' selected language.