Amazon Is Using AI to Lip Sync Actors With Dubbed Dialogue

The next time you watch an international TV show on Amazon’s Prime Video, you might notice the dialogue scenes look a little different — because Prime Video is starting to use AI to match the flesh-and-blood actors’ performances to their dubbed English dialogue.

According to a press release from Amazon, the company is beginning to roll out a new feature that uses “AI and VFX technologies” to sync “actors’ lip movements with human-dubbed audio, creating a seamless viewing experience that allows audiences to remain fully immersed in the story.”

They say the new tech is “designed to create a more enjoyable and accessible viewing experience for our global customers.”

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Amazon is first making this feature available on their popular international series Maxton Hall. The two previously-released seasons of the show are now available in these “Lip-sync” dubs, and when the third season of the German TV series debuts on Prime Video on December 9, it will do so with these special dubs as well. When you go to Maxton Hall’s page on Prime Video right now, the show’s logo has been updated with a little graphic that reads “With Lip Sync For English Dub.”

Amazon provided a brief sample clip which compares the old-fashioned method of dubbing dialogue to this AI-aided method. Though perhaps not quite 100% seamless (and looking a wee bit lost in the uncanny valley) it certainly looks more like the actors are speaking in English than they normally do when you take actors talking in other languages and simply pipe in English words on top of the image.

My concerns are less around how this looks in one particular instance than how it’s done and what comes next. Were the stars of Maxton Hall cool with their performances being tweaked by AI? How well can the AI detect and comprehend emotions and the subtleties of actors’ facial expressions, and ensure those aren’t lost in translation? And if you’re already changing people’s mouths and the words coming out of them, where do you draw a line?

While Maxton Hall is the first title with lip-sync dubbing on Prime Video, Amazon says it “plans to expand the technology to additional titles, bringing this enhanced viewing experience to even more customers and content.” My advice: Just watch Maxton Hall (and all international films and TV shows) in their original language with subtitles. I’ll take a little reading over weird dubbing any day of the week and twice on Prime Day.