TikTok is introducing several new generative AI tools aimed at helping organizations and content creators grow their global audiences with customizable digital avatars and language dubbing capabilities. Building on its Symphony generative AI ad suite announced last month, TikTok said these new tools aim to break down language barriers in marketing and allow brands to “humanize their content,” without the use of live models or presenters.
The first of the new services are Symphony Digital Avatars, which come in two varieties: stock and custom. Stock avatars are based on paid actors of various backgrounds, nationalities and languages. They are available for commercial use. Custom avatars, on the other hand, are created to resemble specific creators or brand spokespersons and speak multiple languages, allowing accounts using them to reach international audiences while still maintaining a certain likeness. Regardless of which type of avatar is used, videos using it will be labeled “AI generated.”
This multilingual support is made possible thanks to Symphony AI Dubbing, a “global translation tool” that allows creators and marketers to dub their content into more than 10 languages and dialects, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Korean. According to TikTok, the tool can automatically detect the language spoken in a video and then transcribe, translate and produce a dubbed video in the user's language of choice.
There is certainly precedent for creators trying to enter other language markets while still maintaining their own identity: MrBeast, for example, has used YouTube's support for multiple language audio tracks to dub his videos into other languages, and FKA Twigs also revealed last month that she has created multilingual “deepfake” versions of herself to promote her work globally. TikTok has not yet responded to a request for pricing for its new AI marketing tools.
A demo video of a custom digital avatar provided by TikTok, modeled after Adrienne Lahens, TikTok's global head of content strategy and operations, is a little creepy, but… just As long as you don't get hung up on overly expressive movements, they're natural enough to be convincing.
Still, creators need to trust that TikTok's new voice-over tools are accurate enough to avoid embarrassing mistranslation gaffes. And for TikTok users already tired of the platform's ubiquitous ads, sales pitches from digital avatars may be more irritating than real ones.
