Dubbing a podcast or YouTube video with AI: what works today and what to check

What dubbing a podcast with AI is and what it's for

Dubbing with AI works like this: a program transcribes what you say, translates it and generates a voice in the other language, following the pace of the original conversation. Some clone the host's voice so it sounds like them. Others also adjust the lip movement in the video.

What's it for? So that a show can reach people who don't understand your language without recording it again. If you make a podcast in Spanish, you can open it up to English speakers. And if you have a company in Spain or another European country, you can serve your customers in France, Germany or Italy in their language with the same content. In a Europe with so many languages, there's a lot of mileage in that.

It's no longer an unusual way of working. According to YouTube, in December 2025 more than six million viewers a day watched at least ten minutes of auto-dubbed content.

It's worth being clear that dubbing is only one of the ways to open a show to another language. There are also subtitles, which are much simpler, and recording directly in the other language, which is still the most natural if you can do it. If you're weighing up that decision, we go through it calmly in podcast in English or in two languages from Spain. Here we're covering what we get asked about more and more: what can be done with AI today and what result it gives.

How YouTube auto dubbing works

It's the easiest way to start, and the one most people search for. YouTube takes the video's original audio, translates it and adds audio tracks dubbed into other languages without you having to upload anything. According to YouTube, auto dubbing is available in 27 languages, and eight of those offer a more expressive voice that sounds less robotic.

How do you turn it on? Creators manage it from YouTube Studio, in the channel settings and on each video, where it can also be switched off. The options and menu names change over time, so if you can't find them, it's best to follow YouTube's official help. That's also where you can see how each video performs by language, using the audio track filter.

And how does a viewer remove it? This is another question that comes up a lot on Google, because it annoys many people. Viewers can switch the audio track in the player, inside the video settings, and choose their preferred language in their YouTube settings. That's why your title and description should make clear which language the show is made in.

There are two limits worth knowing. It only works on YouTube, not on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. And today you have no real control over the translated text, so a proper name, a technical term or a joke can come out wrong without you finding out. For an entertainment channel that may be an acceptable risk. For your company podcast, it depends on what you say in it.

Which AI can I use to dub videos into another language?

If you want more control than auto dubbing gives you, there are tools that do the work outside YouTube and hand you the result: ElevenLabs, HeyGen, Synthesia, Perso and Vozo are some of the best known, and new ones appear every few months. Almost all of them do the same thing: transcribe, translate, let you correct the text, generate the voice and export the audio or video.

The difference lies in three things. The first is whether you can edit the translated text before generating the voice: this is the most important point, and we wouldn't accept a tool without it on a commission. The second is whether it clones voices well with several people talking, because many stumble when two people talk over each other. The third is whether it adjusts the lips, which is very noticeable in a close-up.

That track then gets uploaded to YouTube as an additional audio track, so the same video collects all the views and you don't have to set up another channel. On Spotify and Apple Podcasts, on the other hand, the usual thing is to publish the dubbed version as a separate show with its own listing.

And there's a legal and trust detail you shouldn't skip: a cloned voice belongs to a person. Ask your guests for written permission before you make them talk in another language, and tell your audience the episode is dubbed with AI. They appreciate it, and it saves you bad moments later on. If you have doubts about a specific case, check with an adviser.

How it sounds and what a person should check

Let's be honest: it has improved enormously, and you can still tell. In a calm conversation with one host and good sound, the result is already acceptable to many people. In a debate with people talking at once, or with a lot of irony, it falls short.

So if the show matters to you, someone should review it. These are the things to look at, and the first we'd check ourselves.

Names and terms: people, brands, cities, acronyms and the vocabulary of your sector. That's where AI fails most, and it's what most clearly gives away that nobody reviewed it. Numbers and dates, which sometimes change in translation. Humor and set phrases, which mean nothing when translated literally. And pronunciation, especially of whatever gets said in more than one language within the same sentence.

How you get to this point matters too. A clean voice track gives a much better dub. So the work starts at the recording and the edit, not in the tool. With a lot of noise, overlapping voices or echo, AI translates worse and generates a worse voice. We take care of that sound on every episode, with Aladetres in Spanish and, with our partner Dull Light, with Sadia Khan's The Brutal Truth and other shows in English. Then you have to take care of the rest: captions, thumbnails, title and description in the other language. If only the voice changes, the video still looks foreign.

What's worth dubbing and what isn't

You don't have to dub everything. We say that because dubbing well takes work, and a few well-chosen episodes teach you far more than translating your whole back catalog in one go.

Start with the episodes that last: those still getting views months later, those on universal subjects and those that performed best in your language. If your show is about current affairs, leave that for later, because this week's episode won't interest many people by the time it's translated and reviewed.

Look at the data first. YouTube Studio tells you which countries people watch from. If you already have two or three percent of your audience in another country, that's a pretty clear hint. If you have none, try good subtitles first, which cost very little and also help people find you. We cover it in how to adapt a video into several languages.

And here's a practical rule we use to decide between recording in another language and dubbing: if the host speaks it well, record. An interview with its own personality nearly always wins in its real language, even with an accent. If they don't speak it, or it's back catalog from a show that already works, dub and review. For a company podcast with five markets in Europe, a good option is to record in one common language, dub into the others and carefully check the terms of your sector.

How we help with your podcast in several languages

We work in Spanish and English every week. In Spanish we handle post-production for Aladetres, whose channel grew from around 100,000 to more than 800,000 subscribers on YouTube with Albert Murillo and his team. In English, together with our partner Dull Light in Miami, we edit shows such as The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast and Peter Crone's Finding Freedom. That forces us to take care of subtitles, captions and thumbnails in both languages at the same level.

We'll be clear: AI dubbing is new and we don't yet have a dubbed show to present as a case. What we do have is what makes a dub come out well: clean sound, judgment about what deserves to be dubbed, a review of what each episode says and an image that works in any country. And we also talk plainly about when it isn't worth it.

We work with shows and companies in Spain and across Europe, remotely or in our studio in Viladecans. If you have a podcast and think it could work in another language, book a free diagnosis. We go through your data with you on a video call and tell you where we'd start, and whether it makes sense to do it now. You can also see how we work on a show from start to finish in video podcast production.

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