Microsoft is making another bid to get users to switch to the Edge browser by adding the live video translation feature. This allows the browser to dubbing and subtitling videos in real time from popular services such as YouTube, LinkedIn and Coursera.

The company announced a cool new feature in Edge browser at the Microsoft Build2024 conference. Like so many new Microsoft products, the new features rely on AI to perform their tasks. Essentially, the new AI-powered feature allows you to translate audio content into a specific language while watching. 

Because this feature is still in its infancy, many languages are not supported. Currently works in Spanish to English, English to German, English to Hindi, English to Italian, English to Russian and English to Spanish. Although the language pool is limited, it serves as a compelling proof-of-concept that Microsoft is likely to extend in more languages in the future. In fact, the company has already said it plans to add more tongues over time. 

In addition to the aforementioned popular video services, Microsoft will also support video translation on popular news sites such as Reuters, CNBC and Bloomberg. According to Microsoft, the list of supported websites will grow down the line.

Another potentially useful aspect of this new AI feature is that it allows people who are hard to hear to get video captions that they don't natively have.1 Many video players offer automatic captions, but for those who don't, this could be a game-changing feature that will convince some people to switch to Edge. Of course, it probably won't be that long before Chrome and other browsers roll out similar features. This feature is just the tip of Microsoft's AI iceberg at this year's build. The new AI features are on all kinds of Windows PCs, including the new Snapdragon X-toting models from Lenovo, Asus, Acer and others.