AI Dubbing vs Human Dubbing: Which Is Best Suited to Your Project?

By: Jack Heale | February 2026

𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘹 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦: 5 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘴🕒

You wouldn’t drive a Fiat 500 through a flooded farm road, just like you are unlikely to try and parallel park a Range Rover in a space only suitable for the former vehicle.

(Well, you may do, but we can’t control that!)

The point is: different cars serve different purposes. And the same can be said about the different types of dubbing — human and AI.

It’s not always a one-size-fits-all approach for every project. Different services suit different jobs.

Here is the short answer: AI dubbing is better suited to projects when accuracy and trust aren’t vital factors, like explainer and internal videos. It is good, but it isn’t perfect.

With humans, you know you’re getting that intonation, accent and emotion all down to a tee so it best suits films, TV and video games.

As a multimedia accessibility and localisation company founded in 2014, we actually offer both of these services. That means we’re well-placed to discuss AI dubbing and human dubbing from a balanced perspective. We’re not a tech start-up trying to promise the world, we will always be completely honest about whether AI or human is better.

In this blog, we cover:

  • Quick overviews of dubbing and AI dubbing
  • Which service suits your project in more detail
  • When AI dubbing goes well and not so well
  • A view from the industry

Enjoy!

Dubbing: a quick overview

Dubbing is about creating an experience that feels natural, engaging and accessible for every viewer. Essentially, a voice over will talk over dialogue to translate it.

As a provider with insight, we work with professional voice over talent and experienced engineers across languages, ensuring every dubbed version sounds natural, syncs seamlessly and feels authentic in its new market.

AI dubbing: a quick overview

Whether it be for eLearning, TV, internal videos, social media videos or something else (literally, almost anything) AI dubbing and lip sync solution provides a fast and affordable way to reach more audiences across the globe with a smaller budget.

There should be plenty of languages for you to choose from.

And it’s a growing market. The AI voice generator market (which includes dubbing) in 2025 was worth $4.16 billion and is projected to hit $20.71 billion by 2031.

Which type of dubbing suits your project?

I figured it would be best to list some projects or sectors below and say which service would be preferable and why.

  • Movies, feature films and TV shows: Human dubbing is best to properly bring stories to life seamlessly.
  • Recorded theatre: Professional dubbing for recorded performances is a job best suited to humans to convey the emotion needed.
  • Video games: Immersive character dubbing is best done by humans. Indie game developers may want to explore AI.
  • Advertising and marketing campaigns: Humans are best at engaging, persuasive dubbing and that’s what is needed here, especially for broadcast advertising. Social media videos may be suited to AI dubs.
  • eLearning, training and education: This depends on the topic in education. If it’s a sensitive topic like legal or medical where correct information is critical, choose a human. If it’s not, either human or AI does a good job.
  • Videos: Whether it be for an internal audience or for publishing on social media channels, such as Instagram or YouTube, AI dubbing works for ease. With service providers, you get the human review layer that you don’t get with AI auto dubbing to ensure quality.
  • Corporate and branded media: For training, internal comms, and brand films made accessible across teams and markets, if it’s internal, AI dubbing does the job. If it’s external and you want to be trusted more, use human dubbers.

When AI dubbing goes well on social media

Meta’s AI auto dubbing has been used on ‘reels’, which are social media videos for those not familiar with Instagram and Facebook.

The auto dub started with just English and Spanish languages, it was then rolled out to Portuguese and Hindi, and now covers nine languages in total as of early February 2026.

On these platforms, content can be translated into other languages. As for the lip sync, this is only being piloted in English and Spanish for now.

“Meta is betting on authenticity. They want creators to sound like themselves in every language because that preserves the creator viewer relationship that makes Instagram work. They’re willing to be slower, support fewer languages, and deal with more complex moderation challenges to get there.”

 – Writer Hema Hariharan Samson on Medium

And it’s this authenticity and quality that I think shines through when watching the videos.

When AI dubbing doesn’t go to plan

As fans of Japanese anime show Banana Fish found out in late 2025, AI dubbing doesn’t always go smoothly.

The dubs for an English-speaking audience were “hilariously, inexcusably bad”, reported Forbes.

Voice actor Daman Mills wrote this on X, formerly Twitter, calling out Amazon and Prime Video. The tweet garnered 58,000 likes.

“Shame on you @amazon @PrimeVideo. After years of fans hoping for an English dub of Banana Fish, you give it to us as AI generated garbage? It’s disrespectful as hell. Was a queer trauma narrative handed to a machine because paying real actors is too hard? Fix this, or I personally will not work with you as an actor EVER AGAIN on any of your dubs. This is not ‘the future.’ This is erasure.”

The AI English dub was swiftly removed.

From a viewing perspective, in the above clip, they lack emotion and simply don’t feel authentic.

We must stress we’re not saying all AI dubbing is bad (or even as bad as this example). It certainly is useful when smaller budgets are involved and time is of the essence to make content more accessible to more people. And we also don’t want to jump on the shaming bandwagon.

That being said, for emotive media like films, TV and recorded theatre (and when big budgets are available), quality human dubbers do make the difference. It can also impact how fans view your brand and the esteem they hold it in.

At VoiceBox, we will always advise when we think human or AI dubbing works best.

The industry take

“The thing you get with human dubbers is absolute consistency —  raw emotions and authenticity you can’t get elsewhere right now,” said Sophie Muller, Head of VoiceBox.

“While AI dubbing does have a place for sure, my team advises using it in the right places, whether that be social videos, internal content or simple informational videos.

“We recommend using it in places where there aren’t things on the line, such as reputation, complete accuracy and the like. If it’s speed and agility you want in these contexts, AI dubbing is great.”

Sophie added: “It’s worth saying that we fully support the EU AI Act and how this will impact AI dubbing. Transparency with audiences and being a responsible provider are all things that we are aligned with and we encourage the full enforcement of the Act from August 2026.”

Conclusion

Hopefully you’re now better equipped to work out whether human or AI dubbing is best for your project.

But whatever you do, don’t take a Fiat 500 down *that* road.

Get in touch today to discuss human and AI dubbing in more detail.

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