YouTube rolls out multilingual audio tracks to millions of creators

YouTube is rolling out multilingual audio tracks to millions of creators. The new feature lets viewers listen to videos in multiple languages right after they’re published. In YouTube’s tests, more than a quarter of total watch time came from languages other than the video’s original. Some creators are already leaning heavily into the feature - Mark Rober now offers up to 30 language versions per video, while Jamie Oliver has also seen a sharp boost in views.

YouTube is also experimenting with multilingual thumbnails, a tool that had previously only been available through a small pilot program. The technology still has limits. The AI-generated voices lag behind the quality of systems from companies like ElevenLabs and even Google itself, which recently added multilingual podcast support to NotebookLM.