Your users are spread around the world.
And serving these global users means speaking their language. Literally.
When your users speak different languages, they shouldn't have to struggle through your product tutorials, guides, and courses in English. AI video translations make it possible for Customer Education teams to create this localized content quickly and affordably, ensuring your resources match your users' language preferences.
But here's an important thing about translation that many miss: good translation captures nuance, culture, and context – elements that AI alone still struggles with.
For CEd teams to make that shift from merely translating words to creating truly localized content, you need to balance AI efficiency and human cultural intelligence.
In this article, we'll show you where AI shines in video localization, where humans remain essential, and how to create the perfect workflow that works best for CEd teams.
Video translation, put simply, makes a video accessible in different languages. With AI, you can automate this process of translating spoken language, subtitles, and on-screen text. Instead of spending hours manually translating each video or shelling out big bucks on expensive translation agencies, you can now translate videos in minutes, not weeks, with AI.
Translation contextualises your explainer videos to makes them more impactful and engaging for the native speakers of the target language. But let's be clear: AI translation isn't magic.
While it excels at speed and essential accuracy, it still struggles with:
Now let’s consider where using AI translations can benefit CEd teams when it comes to your video workflows.
The primary goal of translating customer education videos is to enhance their efficacy for the target audience. AI tools solve three challenges when it comes to reaching that goal:
But AI video translation workflows can look very different across CEd teams. The nature of self-help content and your customers’ preferences play a big part in choosing the method of translation, and ultimately, your workflow. Let’s better understand each of these methods so you can make the right choice.
There are three primary ways AI can localize customer education video content by translating it into a different regional languages. But keeping a human in the loop remains crucial to make sure you’re capturing the right cultural nuances.
Subtitling keeps your original video and audio but adds translated text at the bottom of the screen in captions. Leveraging AI-powered translation tools will make the dialect switch more accurate for subtitles as large language models (LLMs) can ‘understand’ the broader intent of sentences and paragraphs.
You’ll often spot this on different social media platforms like YouTube that auto-translate subtitles in real-time. For instance, the subtitles in this Slack customer tutorial video can be translated into any language:
For customer education videos hosted on your knowledge base, website or help center, you can use AI to add subtitles to these videos and make them more accessible.
AI can generate the first draft of translations quickly, but here's where human involvement matters:
Transcripts provide a text version of the entire video content. These transcripts can then be translated into multiple languages to cater to a global customer base.
There are plenty free and paid tools, like Veed and Descript, that transcribe videos. Once you’ve extracted the script, you can use AI to translate them into your customers’ preferred language and upload along with your video. Here’s how we translated the script of the above-mentioned Slack customer education video’s script (auto-generated by YouTube) into German using Claude 3.5:
These translated scripts helps your users search through the learning materials, annotate, and review them at their own pace. Moreover, the extracted scripts can also be used to create help articles or step-by-step guides. Apart from being cost-effective, transcriptions make customer education content more accessible to users with hearing impairments as well.
When to use transcription:
AI can quickly translate transcripts into different languages, but here’s where human intervention may be required:
Voiceovers replace the original audio with narration in the target language. This creates the most natural learning experience for viewers. They can focus entirely on the visuals, and not get distracted by subtitles or have to refer to a translated script.
Traditionally, adding a voiceover to your video meant you had to accurately translate the script, hire voice actors, and ensure audio-video sync - this could take weeks! With AI, you can do away with all that. AI tools can extract the script from the original audio, translate it into the target language, and add realistic AI voiceovers of your choosing to match the video’s pace.
Personio, a SaaS company that builds HR management solutions, leverages AI to create videos in multiple European languages. For example, here's one of their videos with a German voiceover:
Customer education content like onboarding sessions, use case-specific product tutorials, and personalized troubleshooting videos are best translated using voiceovers. This delivers nuanced information in a personalised, engaging way and guides customer action.
When to use voiceovers:
But, which of the above three methods is ideal for your customer education team? Let’s decode that next.
When picking a translation method, one thing matters above all else: your learners' experience. Consider whether your chosen method will enhance or detract from the learning experience.
To that end, here are some important aspects to keep in mind for each of the methods:
If you’re adding subtitles to longer content like demos or training courses, consider the cognitive load on your users.
While voiceovers offer an immersive experience, teams should consider these factors during implementation:
Pro-tip: Clueso solves these common voiceover challenges with state-of-the-art AI voices that capture natural speech patterns across 37+ languages and accents.
Many customers tell us they can't believe our AI voices aren't professional human narrators. Start your free Clueso trial today and try it yourself!
Video is powerful for teaching customers how to use your product. Translating those videos makes them even more effective for your global audience – whether with subtitles, transcribing, or voiceovers.
The most successful video localization combines AI's speed and scale with human cultural intelligence. This balance ensures your content is not just translated, but truly adapted for your international users.
Remember: AI is a powerful tool, but it's the human touch that makes your content connect emotionally and culturally with your global audience.
Ready to create video content that truly speaks your customer's language?
Try Clueso.
1. Can I use AI to translate videos?
Yes, AI video translation tools like Clueso can translate videos by giving them an AI voiceover, ensuring quick and accurate multilingual content for global audiences. Other methods include translating the subtitles and the transcript.
2. How do I change the language of a video using AI?
Upload your video to an AI video translation tool like Clueso, select the target language, and the AI will handle transcription, translation, and voiceover generation. And this can be done in minutes, speeding up the entire video localization process.
3. How to auto-translate a video?
Social media platforms like YouTube offer subtitle translation options to ensure wider accessibility for videos. Additionally, users can leverage AI-powered automation tools like Clueso to add realistic AI voiceovers to their videos in a different languages.
4. Is there an app to automatically translate videos?
Yes, apps like Clueso translate videos into 37+ languages in minutes. All teams have to do is choose the target language based on their customers’ needs.
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