Vimeo rolls out AI video translation for business customers

Businesses using Vimeo to produce videos for employees and customers will now be able to translate their content to dozens of different languages with the touch of a button.

A new AI feature will let Vimeo enterprise customers generate translated videos that even match the voice and tone of the original speakers. The company envisions the feature will be useful both for localizing corporate training and town hall–style updates shared internally at businesses and for translating public-facing marketing and documentation videos for international customers.

At launch, enterprise users will be able to translate videos from 57 input languages to up to 29 output languages, says Ashraf Alkarmi, Vimeo’s chief product officer. The tool can translate multiple languages in one video if needed, like if one speaker is using English and another French. Enterprise customers will get a set number of translation minutes included in their subscriptions, with the option to buy more as needed.

The offering is part of a wave of AI-driven features Vimeo has introduced to simplify video creation and editing, particularly for its enterprise customers of thousands of businesses harnessing video in a time of increased remote communication.

Other recently added AI capabilities include auto-generating text summaries of video, automatically creating highlight reels summarizing videos, and allowing viewers to ask an AI system questions about a video. The latter two features, like the new translation feature, are currently exclusive to enterprise users, a rapidly growing part of Vimeo’s business—enterprise revenue was up 60% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2024, according to a recent quarterly earnings report. 

“We have the capability to insert AI in moments where we significantly add value by reducing work, making manual things automated,” says Alkarmi. Another AI feature currently in beta but slated for broader availability lets users search through a company’s entire video library, Alkarmi adds, going beyond traditional keyword searches to let users find  anything from discussions of the company’s vision to videos featuring the CEO in a red sweater.

Automating translation can mean big savings for businesses that will no longer have to hire translation services to localize videos or handle the logistics of managing multiple versions in different languages. People viewing material translated by Vimeo will be able to select from any languages a video has been translated into to pull up the right audio and optional subtitles, similar to selecting voice and subtitle options on a TV streaming service. 

“We took a big customer need that exists today that’s very hard—manual—and we shrank it down in a button,” Alkarmi says.

Vimeo tested across multiple AI vendors to find the best models for translation, Alkarmi says, and users will be able to give feedback on translation accuracy. Soon, the company plans to also give customers the option to tweak translations and regenerate portions of the video with updated phrasing.

There’s no set timetable for expanding the translation feature beyond the enterprise customer base, but Alkarmi says the company generally aims to make its AI features as broadly available as it can.

“The goal is to democratize the use of really powerful AI capabilities to most of our customers,” he says.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91164438/vimeo-ai-video-translation-business-customers?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss