If you’re unfamiliar with Camb.ai and real time translation, then prepare to be impressed.
That’s because ever since the Dubai-based firm’s technology seamlessly translated the sports commentary of a Major League Soccer (MLS) Next Pro match earlier this year.
As its adoption rapidly spreads across the sporting media landscape, we reveal the tech partners behind Camb.ai. We’ll delve into their groundbreaking real time translation app, how it works, and why it’s also causing controversy.
What is Camb.ai?
A product of Dubai’s burgeoning entrepreneurial tech scene, Camb.ai has swiftly gained traction in the industry.
This is thanks to its AI-powered platform, capable of ultra-realistic dubbing and content localization in over 140 languages and dialects.
Since its inception in 2022, the father and son duo of Avneesh Prakash (CEO) and Akshat Prakash (CTO) have strived to develop a genuine real time translation application.
They achieved their goal by leveraging deep learning models. It then implements zero-shot cross-lingual voice cloning technology.
Camb.ai has so far been a roaring success and:
- Replicates commentators’ voices into 140+ languages.
- Retains all the original emotional nuances.
- Has extended beyond sporting arenas and into movies, live streaming, and YouTube.
It’s certainly hard to ignore Camb.ai’s appeal for broadcasters who operate over multiple languages.
It already boasts several notable sports-orientated clients. These include MLS, Tennis Australia, and Eurovision Sport, with future innovation planned to include real time lip-syncing to enhance a broadcast’s production value.
How AI Real Time Translation Soccer Commentary Works
The commercial value of Camb.ai’s real time translation app is already gaining market penetration across the media landscape.
It has successfully established itself as a market leader within the sports broadcasting sector.
Camb.ai has the power to utilize cross-format video and audio broadcasting content of live events.
The technology can translate any sports commentary feed word-for-word into a host of languages as selected by the broadcaster’s audience.
- Camb.ai harnesses the power of its voice-cloning technology.
- Broadcasters now have the tools to capture the emotion, tone, and context of a native sports commentator.
- This can now be done in the viewer’s respective language.
Sports Leagues Which Use Camb.ai Real Time Voice Translation
Not surprisingly, Camb.ai is already partnering with other sporting entities outside TV and the best soccer betting sites that stream games and MLS.
One such example is Tennis Australia, which utilized the app’s real time translation applications for its player press conferences to help expand the Australian Open’s marketing appeal internationally.
To help demonstrate this, the Australian Open TV released a video of the Novak Djokovic Quarterfinal Press Conference on their YouTube channel, dubbed into Spanish.
Similar to its debut in April’s MLS Next Pro soccer match, Eurovision Sport also used the technology during their transmission of the World Athletics U20 Championships held in Peru this summer.
It’s yet to be seen whether the likes of NFL, MLB and soccer competitions in Europe, featuring some of the most valuable soccer clubs, will now adopt the technology.
If they do, audiences worldwide could soon be watching their sports being commentated on in their native languages. It means AI-cloned commentary from the likes of Colin Cowherd, Stephen A. Smith, and Erin Andrews could be the future norm.
AI Commentary Translation Controversy
As with every AI application, Camb.ai’s real time translation app is not without its critics – at the forefront of these debates are the ethical concerns around gaining players’ and commentators’ consent.
AI can and has been used in the past to:
- Mimic athletes’ and sports announcer’s voices without their blessing.
- This could result in their words being misinterpreted – essentially lost in translation.
- Or, worse, the context being maliciously misconstrued.
- The ability to alter video footage that accurately simulates lip movement could also mean that the reproduced version could be susceptible to deep fakes
A possible solution to help avoid misrepresentation would be to include context-aware subtitling on the screen in the language being spoken.
Finally, for all the excitement of this revolutionary technology, it carries one inevitable pitfall, it will ultimately result in people losing their jobs.
The technology will no doubt lead to countless translation jobs, media positions and every job that goes around that, being lost.
For billion-dollar media companies, the technology will likely save on cost. But they need to be aware of the wider impact the loss of many hundreds of jobs will have.