Maximizing Content Value with Subtitles and Dubbing
AI-driven dubbing has recently gained attention as major platforms like Amazon Prime Video and YouTube roll out new tools designed to expand their content’s global reach. Amazon is testing AI-assisted dubbing on licensed content, while YouTube has introduced auto-dubbing for thousands of channels. Both efforts reflect a growing belief that dubbing can help platforms engage new audiences—but the results so far have been mixed. More on this below.
Figure 1. Amazon Prime testing AI-assisted dubbing. Image source: The Mainstream
These high-profile experiments highlight a crucial point: dubbing may have potential, but it’s not always the right answer. For content producers looking to increase value and expand their audience by distributing to international audiences, the challenge is balancing cost, quality, and compliance.
Subtitles: The Foundation of Localization
If your goal is to distribute content to other countries, subtitles should be the starting point for any localization strategy. In many countries, they aren’t optional — they’re legally required. In the U.S., the CVAA mandates captions for online content that previously aired on television. The European Union’s AVMSD imposes similar rules for broadcasters and VOD services. Canada, Australia, and the U.K. also have strict regulations requiring captions for prime-time programs, public service content, and more.
Beyond legal requirements, subtitles are often the preferred viewing option for non-native audiences. According to a fascinating article on Preply, viewers prefer subtitles over dubbing by significant margins in markets like the U.S., U.K., and much of Asia. They’re familiar, cost-effective, and provide accessibility for viewers with hearing impairments. Dubbing is the shiny new object, but it doesn't automatically make it the best option.
Producers looking to create effective subtitles should consider hiring a translator rather than relying entirely on automated tools. AI-generated subtitles can miss cultural nuance, emotion, and technical jargon, all of which can frustrate viewers. Investing in accurate subtitles ensures you meet legal requirements, satisfy the majority of viewers, and build a solid foundation for further localization efforts.
Obviously, how much you're willing to invest in your subtitles depends upon your content type. As we all know from our experience with YouTube, with auto-generated captions for UGC, there's a tolerance for some errors. With premium content, however, whether entertainment or corporate, a higher standard is expected.
Where Dubbing Fits In
While subtitles are essential, dubbing can still be worthwhile in certain circumstances. As you can see in Figure 2, markets like Germany, Brazil, and Mexico show a preference for dubbed content over subtitles. In those regions, investing in dubbing can significantly improve engagement.
Figure 2. Preply shows subbing (subtitles) vs. dubbing preferences, which vary greatly.
Even in regions where subtitles dominate, dubbing may still be valuable for premium content like feature films, training materials, or marketing videos—especially if the cost is manageable. If your content carries enough value to justify the investment, reaching that additional audience segment may be worthwhile. For the best results, combining both dubs and subtitles—and giving viewers the choice—ensures you’re meeting diverse preferences while maximizing reach.
Lessons from Early AI Dubbing Efforts
Amazon Prime Video and YouTube’s recent efforts reveal both the promise and the pitfalls of AI dubbing. On March 5, 2025, Amazon Prime Video began testing AI dubbing on 12 licensed titles, adding English and Latin American Spanish dubs. Amazon described the effort as a way to “make content more accessible and enjoyable for viewers worldwide.” According to Amazon, the effort combined AI tools with localization professionals to ensure quality control. As Amazon put it, “AI-aided processes like this one, which incorporate the right amount of human expertise, can enable localization for titles that would not otherwise be accessible to customers.”
Despite this hybrid model, some early viewer feedback was negative. While it’s unclear whether the criticism applied to Amazon's recent batch of dubbed content or older efforts, some viewers found the results robotic and unnatural.
YouTube’s automated dubbing (Figure 3) faced similar criticism. While the platform’s auto-dubbing feature enabled creators to expand their reach, viewers often found the experience frustrating. According to The Verge, comments from frustrated viewers described YouTube’s auto-dubbing as “text-to-speech level stuff” and criticized the inability to disable it. This underscores that without viewer control and quality assurance, AI dubbing risks alienating audiences rather than expanding them.
Figure 3. YouTube started offering Auto dubs in December 2024.
Balancing Cost and Quality in Dubbing
For user-generated content (UGC), fully automated dubbing—like YouTube’s model—may be the only realistic solution. Automation keeps costs down for large volumes of low-value content, but the trade-off is quality.
For premium content—movies, training materials, or marketing content—quality dubbing requires more than just AI. Amazon’s hybrid approach, combining AI with professional oversight, reflects this reality. While the results weren’t perfect, this model points toward a better strategy for balancing cost, scale, and quality. In short, the more valuable the content, the greater the need for human involvement to refine AI outputs and ensure a better viewer experience.
Also recognize how much more complicated dubbing is than subtitling, and how much more obvious and irritating poor-quality dubbing is to your audience. Dubbing involves timing, lip sync, and voice acting, any one of which is more complicated than simply translating text. In an era where AI-based automated speech to text and translation still isn't perfect, we should all recognize that AI-based auto-dubbing has a much higher hill to climb.
Don't Forget to Coordinate
If you decide to sub and dub, don't forget to coordinate the two. My experience with a premium content provider that used manual dubbing shows how distracting mismatched subtitles and dubs can be. I often watch shows while on the elliptical or exercise bike, with English subtitles displayed alongside the dubbed English audio. With one show in particular on this service, the two versions varied so much that it became frustrating and distracting—almost like hearing one story while reading another.
This disconnect often happens when dubbing and subtitling are managed separately. That's because localization isn’t just translation—it’s the process of adapting content for cultural context, regional norms, and emotional impact. Localization often involves adjusting slang, idioms, humor, or even currency references to feel natural to the target audience.
Ask any two translators (or AI services) to localize the same script, and you'll almost certainly get two different results. Ask one translator to create a script for dubbing and another to convert the original subtitles, and the results will likely vary even more. Since dubs often prioritize timing, lip sync, and emotional tone, while subtitles aim to stay concise and closely match the original dialogue, the two versions can end up feeling noticeably different if they aren’t coordinated.
Since the first step in dubbing is to create a translated script, that script should also serve as the foundation for your subtitles. If you already have translated subtitles and add dubbing later, using those subtitles as a guide for your dubbing script is to maintain alignment is an obvious step. If you’re starting from scratch, building your script first and adapting it for both dubbing and subtitling may be the simplest way to ensure consistency.
Don't forget that some viewers prefer to watch dubbed content with subtitles—whether to catch missed details, reinforce language learning, or simply for convenience. For these viewers, consistency between the two is crucial. If the dubbing says one thing and the subtitles say another, the result can be distracting or confusing.
Implications for Service Providers
For encoding vendors, cloud production services, and video editors, subtitles and multiple language tracks have quickly become table stakes. Open-source Whisper technology pushed automatic speech recognition (ASR) from a specialized tool into a must-have feature for media processing pipelines. AI dubbing feels headed in the same direction.
Encoding vendors that build native dubbing capabilities, or partner with services like Lingopal (Figure 4) or Camb.ai, will be best positioned to support customers as demand grows. As with Whisper, those who move early will have the advantage.
Figure 4. Live multi-language dubbing from Lingopal
Conclusion
If you're a content owner, distributing your content to non-native speakers starts with subtitles. They’re often legally required, frequently preferred, and cost-effective to produce. Dubbing can expand your reach further, especially in markets where it’s popular or for premium content that justifies the investment.
The key is to give viewers the choice. Start with quality subtitles, add dubbing where it makes sense, and ensure your platform gives users control over how they experience your content. By building a localization strategy that combines these elements, you can improve engagement, expand your audience, and maximize the value of your content worldwide. For tools and service vendors that process video, if you've added speech-to-text to your product or service, auto dubbing may very well be next.
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