San Francisco, United States — Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service announced Wednesday it will begin testing AI-assisted dubbing to make its international content more accessible to viewers worldwide.

The pilot programme will initially feature 12 licensed movies and series that previously lacked dubbing support, including titles such as El Cid: La Leyenda, Mi Mamá Lora, and Long Lost.

The service will launch with English and Latin American Spanish dubbing options.

“At Prime Video, we believe in improving customers’ experience with practical and useful AI innovation,” said Raf Soltanovich, VP of technology at Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios.

“AI-aided dubbing is only available on titles that do not have dubbing support, and we are eager to explore a new way to make series and movies more accessible and enjoyable.”

The developments came as union leaders in the creative industries bill AI as an existential crisis for artists, who worry that their livelihoods will be wiped out by the technology.

The role of AI was a major factor in the 2023 Hollywood strikes by actors and writers who feared that studios would use generative AI to perform tasks typically done by paid creatives.

With over 200 million customers worldwide, Prime Video reports growing interest from viewers seeking to enjoy content regardless of its country of origin.

Unlike some competitors, Prime Video said its approach combines AI with human expertise, as localisation professionals collaborate with AI technology to ensure quality control.

In December, YouTube expanded its AI-powered auto-dubbing capability to “hundreds of thousands of channels” in its Partner Program that focus on knowledge and informational content.

YouTube’s system automatically generates dubs in eight languages for English content, including French, German, Hindi, Italian, Spanish, Indonesian, Japanese, and Portuguese.

In another recent announcement, Lumiere Ventures and AI start-up ElevenLabs unveiled a collaboration to recreate the voice of Alain Dorval, the late French voice actor who dubbed Sylvester Stallone for nearly five decades, for an upcoming film.

This project, developed with the support of Dorval’s family, aims to preserve the familiar voice French audiences associate with Stallone’s characters following Dorval’s passing in February.