YouTube is working on a new way to let creators reach more viewers in different languages. Instead of just translating subtitles, YouTube will use artificial intelligence to dub videos with different voices. The company announced this feature, called Aloud at VidCon. Aloud is a project from Google's Area 120 incubator.
Aloud can create a dubbed version of a video in minutes using AI. It first translates the text and lets the creators review and edit it. Then it generates a voice-over with different options for narrators and publishing. The best part is that Aloud is free, as stated on its website.
YouTube is testing Aloud with hundreds of creators right now, YouTube's VP of product management, Amjad Hanif, told The Verge. It supports English as the original language and Spanish and Portugese as the target languages, with more to come soon.
Viewers can choose the audio track they want from the gear icon on the video player below the subtitles option. One example of Aloud in action is the Amoeba Sisters science channel trailer, which has an English and a Spanish audio track created by Aloud's AI.
YouTube hopes that Aloud will help creators grow their audience without extra effort. There is no word on when Aloud will be available to more creators. In the future, YouTube plans to make the dubbed voices sound more like the original ones, with more emotion and lip sync.