The comedy sci-fi novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams taught us to love the small, yellow Babel fish. “If you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language,” Adams wrote. That sci-fi dream is coming true as 2025 has made AI-driven translation an easily accessible feature. Not yet fully perfect, but AI translation could rewire economics by empowering content creators as much as individuals. If Apple’s live translation feature with AirPods Pro 3 can help users listen to conversations in a variety of foreign languages, Meta’s take on the technology can help creators put out content in multiple tongues.
Imagine discovering a Reel that makes you happy or teaches you something new, no matter where it was created or what language it was filmed in. Meta is doing just that.
In August, the company expanded access to translations for bidirectional English and Spanish for creators on Facebook and Instagram, allowing more creators to seamlessly translate their Reels with Meta AI. In October, two more languages were added — Hindi and Portuguese. And now, Meta is expanding to five Indic languages: Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Marathi.
“One of the most beautiful things about the feature is that the AI aspect will mimic the tonality and the voice of the creator to make it sound organic and authentic. Another feature: It will match the sound of the translation to the creator’s lip movements. If you look at it from a creator’s point of view, he or she will be able to reach an audience that was previously untapped. The content could reach a broader audience across the globe, offering an opportunity to grow across more communities,” Ankit Rihal, lead — global partnerships, Meta, India, told us over a video call.
Scaling easily
Since the announcement of translations with Meta AI in 2024, the company has been working towards making content more accessible for everyone. In September 2024, the company began small tests on Instagram and Facebook, translating some creators’ videos from Latin America and the US into English and Spanish. It proved hugely successful.
Helping scale is how closely Meta works with content creators. “They are an integral part of our product journey and testing experience. They have also been an integral part of the way we build our products. If you look at the way we test our products, it has been pretty quick — be it Edits and the time it took to launch, or this… translation. Only in October, we launched English to Hindi to Spanish and Portuguese, and here we are talking about five new languages. The idea is to make sure the product is relevant, and meant for the people who find the most use cases — and they are the people who give us the most feedback,” said Rihal.
Translating Reels with Meta AI is free. Here’s how it works: Meta AI mimics the sound and tone of a creator’s voice to translate Reels, so the end result is content that feels authentically like the creator, just in another language. A creator can also choose to enable the lip-syncing feature, which syncs the translated audio to the creator’s mouth movements, creating a more natural viewing experience. Every translated Reel is clearly labelled “Translated with Meta AI”, so you’ll always know when you’re watching translated content. You can also choose to turn translations on or off, or watch Reels in their original language — simply select “Don’t translate” in the audio and language section of the three-dot settings menu.
“You would have heard Mark (Zuckerberg) talk about this earlier this year. One of our visions is to bring personal superintelligence to everyone. That will have a different manifestation in how people leverage AI as part of their day-to-day life and how creators use AI. The first is managing experiences: how Meta uses AI in a significant way, serving the right content to the right consumers to ensure content relevancy is at its highest. We have leveraged AI strongly to strengthen recommendation systems.
"In Q2 2025, we saw a 5 per cent increase in time spent on Facebook and a 6 per cent increase in time spent on Instagram. On content in general, we have seen how we enable AI in our products for better content creation. We have integrated AI into our apps, like Edits, our mobile video editing app for creators. It has been the most trending app in India in the last couple of months since its launch. Some of the content creators are using via Edits leverages AI — for example, the snow-effect filter went viral and got millions of views. Meta AI, in general, has been quite successful. Our focus will be to offer deeper experiences and ensure more personal AI for consumers,” said Rihal.
Creator economy
He believes content creators are living in exciting times. “There is a great inflection point, influenced by the way technology is progressing. Just this year, the way AI has evolved… it has been amazing. The rise of regional creators in terms of regional diversity also adds a mix of digital entrepreneurs. And the culmination of these makes it a stronger inflection point. If you just look at AI integration — how AI can be a strong enabler for creators to tell their stories more powerfully or help in ideation of content, whether as a tool for them to edit the right videos or in how they put their content forward — AI plays an important role in enhancing creative capabilities.”
He spoke about the rise of regional content creators and the increasing importance of short-form video, especially Reels, becoming the primary “surface” of content consumption and creation. “Building on these broader themes, the way we see our work reflect these themes is how Meta AI becomes a great tool for people and creators to bring their creativity to life. With Edits, there is easier content editing and easy-to-access video editing capabilities. With AI translations, the canvas is now global, not just in India. Creators can reach a broader audience. How do creators make money? Through the work we are doing in the creator marketplace, we ensure creators have access to brands and brands have access to creators. And the matchmaking happens quite seriously on our platforms.”
For Rihal, the new translation options will help him make more content in Marathi and also in Bengali. “My best friend is a Bengali. I feel like whenever I go to his house for Puja and create content for his mother in Bengali, it will be appreciated.”
Features such as these may also help creators feel more confident. “I would delink creator hesitancy between posting content and translation. With translation, you can reach a wider audience. Features like Close Friends or posting content to a limited audience break the inhibition or nervousness some may have about posting content. One of the things we have seen is Trial Reels… we saw 40 per cent of creators sharing more content on the platform, of which 80 per cent of users saw higher reach from non-followers. Features coexist to make sure creators feel safe and have more control over who sees the content, helping them become more confident and get feedback from the audience they are reaching.”
Mathures Paul