Instagram Introduces Auto-Captions for Videos
Besides helping the people who don’t like to enable audio while watching videos, the feature is primarily for deaf users and those with hearing disabilities as auto-generated captions will now allow them to easily access videos. This will, in turn, help Instagram and creators get more engagement on the videos as people will be more likely to watch videos instead of skipping them. 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
For creators, there’s another perk. Their videos will have the auto-captions enabled by default. This way, they won’t have to go through the process of adding them manually.
Moreover, Instagram suggests that since the automatic captions use AI, they won’t be entirely perfect. So, if you find some errors, don’t be disappointed as the AI’s quality will “continue to improve” as its learnings increase.
The auto-generated captions also come with an on/ off toggle. So, you can simply tap on the three-dotted option in the top right corner of a video -> select the Manage Captions option -> Disable or enable the Captions option, and you are done.
In related news, Instagram recently shut down its IGTV app, which will no longer be available for Android and iOS users, starting mid-March. The aim is to make videos accessible right from the main Instagram app.
The automatic caption feature wasn’t available for use at the time of writing, though. We can expect it to reach all users in the coming days. What are your thoughts about this new feature? Let us know in the comments below.
