YouTube Auto Dubbing: Everything You Need to Know

As YouTube continues to expand globally, language barriers have become an obstacle for creators wanting to reach new audiences. To address this, YouTube recently launched an AI-powered auto dubbing tool, created by YouTube’s subdivision Aloud, designed to automatically dub videos into various languages. In this article, we’ll dive deep into YouTube’s auto-dubbing tool, its benefits and challenges, and see whether human dubbing services like BeMultilingual is the right choice for creator's content.

What is YouTube Auto Dubbing?

YouTube’s auto dubbing feature, announced during the Made on YouTube event on September 18, 2024, uses AI to automatically translate and generate audio tracks in different languages for creators' videos. Created by Aloud, this tool aims to break down language barriers by translating and voicing over content, allowing creators to reach a global audience.

YouTube videos that use YouTube's auto dubbing feature, will have the following message within their description under "How this content was made":

Audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated. Learn more

Who Has Access to YouTube Auto-Dubbing?

On February 11, 2025 Neal Mohan the CEO of YouTube in his annual letter mentioned the breaking news that auto dubbing will soon be available to all creators in the YouTube Partner Program. The YouTube Partner Program is anyone who has monetization, which is over 3 millions YouTubers who will be receiving the auto dubbing feature.

How to View YouTube Auto Dubbing?

To view YouTube’s auto-dubbing feature:

1. Click on a YouTube video.

2. Select the settings (gear icon).

3. Click “Audio Tracks.”

4. Select your preferred language.

Note that YouTube videos that have auto dubbing audio tracks, will have the following message within their description under "How this content was made":

Audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated. Learn more

How Does YouTube Auto Dubbing Work?

The process for using YouTube auto dubbing is straightforward:

1. Upload Your Video – YouTube detects the language and creates dubbed versions automatically.

2. Watch Your Dubbed Videos – Find dubs in YouTube Studio under the new “Languages” section to review, unpublish, or delete them. Note the "Languages" section in YouTube Studio replaced the previous "Subtitles" section.

3. Check Availability – Go to YouTube Studio under “Advanced Settings” to see if auto-dubbing is enabled for your channel.

Supported Languages: English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

According to Google, creators can opt-out of this feature if they prefer not to use it for certain videos:

“You can choose which languages will be automatically dubbed upon upload, with an opt-out available” - YouTube Help

What Does YouTube Auto Dubbing Sound Like in 2025?

A recent example of YouTube’s auto-dubbing revealed its current limitations, such as mismatched voices (a female AI voice replacing a male creator’s voice), robotic tones, and distorted background audio.

Watch the YouTube auto dubbing example here: https://youtu.be/YWvAXSDVBNw?si=Bbj7Xat76Zzd-PCl

This video was originally created in English and has been auto dubbed into Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), French (France), Spanish (United States). These are all the languages currently supported by YouTube's auto dubbing feature

Review of YouTube's Auto Dubbing: https://youtu.be/YWvAXSDVBNw?si=Bbj7Xat76Zzd-PCl

Speaker Selection: YouTube's auto dubbing is using a woman's voice for the A.I dubs when the original speaker is a male. This immediately turns new potential viewers away from the video, as it's blatantly misrepresenting

Dubbing Quality: The dubbing itself has a robotic voice that does not represent the emotions of the original creator. For example in the intro of the video, the original creator has high energy and expressive emotions, whereas all 4 auto dubbed languages are emotionless.

Background Audio: The background audio is very irritating. YouTube's auto dubbing feature scrapes the original video's background audio to utilize it for the dubs. However, in most cases this leaves a very distorted and unenjoyable product. Compared to what you would receive from a professional dubbing studio with veteran audio engineers, the background sounds make the dubbing almost unbearable.

The Result of Auto Dubbing?

Due to the poor quality of YouTube's auto dubbing, viewers are begging creators to disable it.

There's a reddit thread talking about viewers experiences so far with the auto dubbing feature. The thread is called "YouTube now automatically dubs videos and it's annoying".

There is a similar thread on YouTube Support called "HOW TO DISABLE AUTO DUBBING ?".

To summarize the viewers experience: "PLEASE !!! PLEASE !!! WHERE IS THE OPTION TO TURN IT COMPLETLY OFF !!! IT'S TERRIBLE ANNOING !!!"

How to Disable Auto Dubbing?

Viewers have no option to turn off hearing the automatic dubs. Viewers will have to manually switch between audio tracks.

Creators who have the auto dubbing feature, will automatically have the dubbing feature turned on by default, however you can turn it off at any time.

To disable it as the creator use the following steps: Go and sign in to YouTube Studio -> Click Settings -> then Upload defaults -> then Advanced settings -> then uncheck the Allow automatic dubbing box -> lastly click save.

Future of Dubbing on YouTube?

Both YouTube's execs and MrBeast recognize that dubbing is the next big step for the platform. However, the creators that have capitalized on dubbing and captured a global audience have only been able to do so using human dubbing.

This is what Neal Mohan the CEO of YouTube had to say about it:

"The Amazing Digital Circus, an animated series from the Australian-based channel GLITCH, became a global sensation, appearing in YouTube's annual End of Year list across eight countries." - Neal Mohan the CEO of YouTube

The Amazing Digital Circus has been dubbed into over 15 languages all of which have been using human voice actors and localization teams like BeMultilingual.

“The team at BeMultilingual have been extremely professional and provided great translation services that boosted our video’s performance.” — Glitch

The Shortcomings of Auto Dubbing

While auto dubbing seems promising, it has significant limitations:

1. Lack of Emotional Depth

AI-generated voices often sound robotic and unnatural. A glaring example comes from Kings and Generals, a popular YouTube channel with over 2.15 million subscribers, which used YouTube’s auto dubbing for some of their historical content. The results?

“It’s an AI voice, very computerized. The voice seems very artificial and at points is incomprehensible.” — Independent Spanish Viewer

“The AI VO in PT is horrible. The voice is flat, weak, and robotic. It’s damaging the channel’s reputation.” — Independent Portuguese Viewer

2. Cultural Disconnect

AI lacks cultural context. In certain videos, especially those discussing sensitive subjects like politics, history, or cultural customs, it’s crucial that the tone and context are handled appropriately. AI cannot adapt to these nuances, leading to an experience that can feel off-putting to native speakers.

3. Quality vs. Convenience

While AI might save time, it sacrifices quality. In fields where trust, emotion, and cultural relevance are key—such as education, entertainment, and history—viewers can easily sense the difference between a professionally dubbed video and one translated by a machine.

Reviews of the AI Dubbing In 2024

Aloud promotes its dubbing for the YouTube channel Kings and Generals on its homepage, showcasing the technology's multilingual and speech recognition capabilities.

However, let's see how the AI dubbing actually performs and sounds like: Link to the YouTube video: Click here to watch the AI-dubbed video

• To see the dubs, click on the video, click settings, click audio tracks, and select the language you want to hear.

• This video was released in September, the same month YouTube launched this feature on the platform.

As you can see Aloud boasts about it's dubbing for the YouTube channel Kings and Generals on Aloud's home page.

“It's an AI voice, very computerized. The voice seems very artificial and at points is incomprehensible. Too bad as the theme of the channel seems interesting to me. Many of the translations are done literally and don't capture the real meaning” 

- Independent Spanish Viewer

“The AI VO in PT is horrible. I have seen better AI voices but this one is flat, weak, very robotic, female (high pitch) and sounds ridiculous. Some parts are even funny. It is damaging their reputation - talking about power, Rome, masculinity... Many of the translations aren't right. There would be better translations that should be used. I can say one thing more: because of this painful female AI VO, the channel may not be reaching the PT audience or not pleasing it. I rolled and rolled and didn't find a comment in PT. The human VO in English in the same video is far, far better and the comments show how much the male audience enjoys it. There are even people saying how nice the voice is.” 

- Independent Portuguese Viewer

Who Should Use YouTube Auto Dubbing?

YouTube’s auto dubbing feature, based on speech recognition technology, can be helpful for certain types of creators:

• Casual Content Creators who post frequently and don’t require high levels of emotional depth in their translations.

• Budget-Conscious Creators who are exploring international audiences and need a quick, cost-effective solution.

However, for creators with a large following, the limitations of auto dubbing can be a dealbreaker.

Human Dubbing vs. YouTube Auto Dubbing

While YouTube’s AI auto dubbing might be good enough for quick, low-budget translations, creators who care about maintaining the integrity of their content and building genuine connections with international audiences will find that human dubbing is the better option.

Here’s why BeMultilingual stands out:

1. Native-Speaking Voice Actors: BeMultilingual uses professional native-speaking voice actors who understand the tone, context, and emotional depth required to truly resonate with an audience.

2. Custom Dubbing Solutions: BeMultilingual offers tailored solutions that allow creators to select the type of voice and tone they need, ensuring that the dubbed content maintains the same feel as the original.

3. A Proven Track Record: With glowing testimonials from creators, it’s clear that working with professionals can lead to substantial increases in views and audience engagement.

Conclusion

While YouTube’s auto-dubbing is a step forward, it still falls short of the quality offered by human dubbing. For creators serious about global reach and quality, services like BeMultilingual remain the superior choice. Contact BeMultilingual here.