Artificial intelligence features are being introduced on every possible platform. Microsoft is of course no exception, as their AI assistant, Copilot, runs on OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform (in which the company is a major investor). Currently, the company continues to work on the AI video translation feature for Microsoft Edge. It’s not available yet, but you can find it if you know where to look.
Twitter user Leopeva64 followed development of Microsoft’s AI translation capabilities from October. It started with a straightforward “Translate” button that didn’t actually do anything, but Leopeva64 has since rolled out UI updates to this feature over the course of several months. In March, Leopeva64 reported that the function will be able to generate both audio and subtitles for translation. Four days ago, Leopeva64 announced that the video translation feature will be powered by artificial intelligence (previously, the feature only showed “Preview” information). Yesterday, user shared that Microsoft has added a toggle to enable or disable video translation:
The tweet may have been deleted
Once the feature is enabled and the switch is on, you should be able to translate any compatible video into an available language of your choice and decide whether the result will be an audio or subtitle translation. Leopeva64 tells me that the AI translation is still not working at the moment, which means the switch is just a placeholder. However, the fact that Microsoft continues to make changes to this work-in-progress feature, and the decision to implement the switch at this point, leads me to believe that this feature will be made available to testers in the near future.
How to try out AI translation in Edge when it’s ready
If you want to try and find this switcher for yourself, don’t bother opening Edge on your Mac or PC. Instead, you must employ the version of Edge that Microsoft uses to test modern features: Edge’s canary. According to Leopevy64, Microsoft flipped the switch on Edge Canary users on Monday, but again, I don’t see it in my Canary version as of this writing. I imagine Microsoft is slowly rolling this out to testers, so keep checking if you don’t see it too.
To check this, open Edge Canary and then go to Settings > Languages. Under Translation section, you should find it Offer to translate videos on support sites [Preview]. Press the switch if it is off. Once the feature goes live, every time you watch a video in Edge Canary, you should see a modern pop-up option next to Picture-in-Picture and Enhance. Select your target language, then the language you want to translate into, and the feature should take care of the rest.
