New Delhi, Nov. 13 -- 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 cre...