Regional creators go multilingual with AI, but will the money follow?

Instagram and YouTube’s AI dubbing tools have helped regional creators reach wider audiences, but questions remain over whether translated videos can drive meaningful engagement and earnings while retaining the cultural nuances of the original content.

Meta Platforms Inc.-owned Instagram and Alphabet Inc.-owned YouTube have rolled out built-in artificial intelligence (AI) dubbing and translation tools to help regional content creators reach audiences beyond their home markets. The expansion, however, raises two questions: will additional viewership translate into meaningful engagement and higher earnings, and can dubbed videos retain the cultural nuances and natural delivery that make original content resonate?

On 16 January, Instagram expanded its Reels translation feature to Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Marathi, in addition to four existing languages: English, Hindi, Spanish and Portuguese. On 4 February, YouTube opened its auto-dubbing feature to all creators and expanded support to 27 languages.

Instagram and YouTube did not respond to Mint’s queries by press time.

Meta said during its first-quarter earnings call in April that more than 500 million users each on Instagram and Facebook watched AI-translated videos every week. However, wider distribution has not necessarily translated into higher earnings for creators.

“AI dubbing could potentially open up additional distribution opportunities and make regional content accessible to a wider audience. However, the commercial upside will depend on whether that expanded reach translates into meaningful engagement and conversions,” said Shubh Dutt, co-founder of influencer marketing firm Ringlight Media.

Reach beyond home

Ipsita Moitra, a Bengali-language creator in the beauty and lifestyle space, said AI dubbing had helped her reach audiences beyond West Bengal, which earlier accounted for around 65% of her audience. Her working comparison suggests that the share of viewers outside the state has increased from approximately 35% to 45-50% through multilingual distribution. Her regular Reels typically receive 50,000 to 1 lakh views.

“In my initial AI dubbing experiments, I have been using a benchmark of approximately 50,000 views for an original Reel against a potential 60,000–65,000 views for its multilingual version. This represents an increase of around 20–30%,” Moitra said.

Kannada-language finance creator Rajeev KS said most of his core audience still came from Karnataka, but AI-dubbed videos had helped his content reach 20-30% more viewers. The tools had also reduced the time and cost involved in producing multilingual videos.

“Traditionally, manual translation, voiceovers and editing could take 2–3 hours per video. AI tools can potentially reduce this to 20–30 minutes, saving approximately 60–80% of production time, depending on the workflow,” he said.

Bengali-language beauty and lifestyle creator Pallabi Paul Kundu said she had earlier edited videos herself using a paid editing app. Instagram’s AI dubbing feature had reduced production costs and made the results more realistic through lip-syncing.

“People can’t even spot the difference and tell whether I’m actually speaking in another language or not,” she said. She added that her videos had seen a 15-20% increase in viewership.

The revenue test

However, higher viewership does not necessarily mean higher earnings, particularly on Instagram, where creators’ income depends largely on brand collaborations rather than direct payments from the platform based on views, Rajeev said.

Brands have started looking beyond audience size to metrics such as verified engagement, affiliate sales and vernacular resonance, an earlier Mint report noted. This shift comes as more creators from smaller cities enter the brand economy.

The number of non-metro creators participating in brand campaigns rose from around 38,000 in 2020 to more than 4.08 lakh in 2025, according to a report by the Indian School of Business and HashFame, a creator-brand networking platform. The same report said India’s overall creator pool grew from 9.6 lakh in 2020 to 41.2 lakh in 2025.

The commercial value of AI dubbing will depend on whether brands can measure its impact across different language markets, said Rohit Dalmia, chairman and managing director of CineNow, an investment platform focused on intellectual property rights.

“Platforms and creators need language-level measurement of viewership, completion, engagement and conversion so brands can see that dubbed audiences are incremental and commercially valuable,” he said. He added that multilingual distribution would become a revenue opportunity only when brands could link it to actual sales.

Lost in translation

Marathi-language comedy creator Aishwarya Bomble said regional content often relies on cultural references, local humour, slang, accents and a creator’s natural way of speaking. The overall essence of regional content could get diluted when dubbed into another language using AI, she added.

“Around 80% of my audience is Marathi-speaking, and I’ve noticed that my Marathi content consistently performs better. Interestingly, even non-Marathi-speaking viewers engage with my content in Marathi,” she said.

“Especially with conversational or comedy-led content, timing, expressions and delivery are a huge part of the experience. A literal translation might communicate the message, but it may not recreate the same emotion or humour,” she added.

Dutt also pointed to challenges around regional dialects and voice synchronization.

“A translation can be technically accurate but still sound unnatural to someone who speaks that language every day. This can affect how audiences perceive the content and, ultimately, their willingness to engage with it,” he said.

AI dubbing can help regional creators reach audiences beyond their home markets, but the real test is whether that reach translates into meaningful engagement and commercial returns without compromising the cultural nuances that make the original content distinctive.

About the Author

Rudrani Chattopadhyay is a Mumbai-based journalist. At Mint, she covers the creator economy and education, with a particular interest in the smaller trends taking shape across digital media. She believes every trend has a story behind it and likes digging into the people, ideas and shifts that sit beneath what is immediately visible. Before joining Mint, she worked at The Statesman in Kolkata, where she started as an intern before working as a sub-editor on the print news desk. She holds a master’s degree in Media Science and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Calcutta. Rudrani keeps too many tabs open in her mind, is a raging maximalist and has a soft spot for historical fiction and feminist literature. She is happiest when in the company of coffee.