Amazon announced on March 5 that its Prime Video platform would now offer films and series dubbed using artificial intelligence (AI). This initiative, which currently covers twelve works, including Mi Mama Lora (2016) and La Légende del Cid (2003), aims to make accessible content that would never have benefited from human dubbing due to lack of profitability. These versions will be available in English and Spanish for the Latin American market, according to an official Amazon press release. Unlike YouTube, which has already integrated AI dubbing for its content creators, Amazon is the first major streaming player to apply it to fiction.
While the company assures that the quality of the dubbing will be monitored by professionals, this development is causing serious concern in the dubbing industry. Several startups like DeepDub are already working on tools capable of modulating accents or imitating the voices of deceased actors. This is precisely what caused a controversy last January when Lumiere Ventures announced that the film Armor, broadcast on Prime Video France, would use AI to recreate the voice of Alain Dorval, who passed away in February 2024, who dubbed Sylvester Stallone in French. The announcement sparked an outcry in the dubbing industry, with some denouncing a direct threat to their profession.
For advocates of this technology, AI could democratize dubbing, making niche films accessible to a wider audience. But for its detractors, it represents an economic and artistic danger, risking impoverishing the diversity of voices and jeopardizing the work of specialized actors. Contacted by AFP, Netflix, Amazon's main competitor, has not yet responded to this announcement. It remains to be seen whether this innovation will be widely adopted or whether resistance from the industry will slow its expansion.
