Instagram is finally adding auto-generated captions to videos

Instagram head Adam Mosseri has announced that Instagram is finally adding auto-generated captions to videos to aid accessibility. 

Acknowledging that “it’s a long time coming,” Mosseri announced the rollout of the feature via Twitter while stating that it “empowers those in the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities.” 

While auto-generated captions are definitely a nice feature to have if you’re deaf, hard-of-hearing, or just prefer the sound off, it’s certainly been quite the wait, as the social media juggernaut of TikTok implemented a similar feature last April.

Considering that companies are seemingly doing whatever they can to keep up with TikTok’s phenomenal rise in popularity, the only surprise is that it has taken Instagram so long to copy this rather basic feature which makes content consuming so much easier. 

Previously if a creator wanted to have captions on their video, it was up to them to manually add them in what was often a laborious and time-consuming task. 

It’s a long time coming, but we’re excited to share a new tool that empowers those in the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities.

Videos on Instagram will now have auto-generated captions, where you have the option to turn them off or on. pic.twitter.com/DNyzcdiPSU

— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) March 1, 2022

As reported by TechCrunch, auto-generated captions are available in 17 launches at launch. These languages are: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Vietnamese, Italian, German, Turkish, Russian, Thai, Tagalog, Urdu, Malay, Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese. Support for more languages will be coming soon.