With LiveVoice AI Translation, you can provide speech-to-speech translation for live events in a very simple, cost-effective and flexible way in over 60 languages. You find the list here.

💭 What you should know first

AI Voice Translation is a pay-as-you go service that you can book online additionally to your LiveVoice account plan (day plan or subscription). It is billed by minute and invoiced afterwards. You find the pricing here.

Before you pay, you can try out the AI Services (AI Voice Translation and AI Subtitles) each up to 20 minutes for free. Once you have used up the free minutes, you will only be able to use AI Services if you have an active subscription or day plan. If you have added a payment method (e.g. by booking a listener plan), minutes that go beyond the free minutes will be invoiced to this payment method.

☝️ Setting expectation right

As there are very different expectations how good AI already is, we want to make clear: You will still get the best live translation from human interpreters. Also, the speed will be faster with human interpretation, because AI will need to wait until a sentence is finished until it can actually start translating. This can lead to longer pauses when speakers use very long sentences for example. We recommend you try it out and hear for yourself, if AI or human interpreters are the right choice for your occasion. LiveVoice offers both.

More: Find out about the differences between AI Translation vs. Human interpreters in this blog article here.

How to start AI Voice Translation:

Step 1: Create event and channels

Set up your event and audio channels, the same way as you would with an event with human interpreters.

You will need one channel for the original audio (also known as “Floor” channel) and at least one translation channel. There is also a template you can use to give you a feeling how this can look like and which you can then edit according to your needs.

This is how a setup could look like:

Step 2: Enable and set up AI Voice Translation

Now you go to the channel setting of each translation channel.

a. Go to the tab "AI Services" and turn on the toggle.

b. Define the source channel and the language spoken on this channel. It is also possible to define multiple input languages, which the AI will translate into your selected target language. *

c. Select your target language. You can also choose whether the voice should be male or female.

d. Save (you will be asked to check the box that you have understood AI features are billed by minute, in addition to your listeners plan).

e. Do the same for each AI translation channel you want.

* Note, that the more accurate you make these settings, the better the translation will be. Therefore, do not add languages you do not really need. In certain cases you might also choose a language but set it on "ignore" if for a specific AI Translation channel you do not want to use this language to be translated.

Step 3: Start Original Audio (Floor) channel

a. Connect audio: Connect audio mixing console to a laptop or PC (audio cable or USB, depending on your equipment).

b. Open LiveVoice: Open LiveVoice on the computer browser (open www.livevoice.io and enter the speaker code of the floor channel; we recommend Chrome as browser)

c. Start Streaming: Click “Start” in the LiveVoice Lobby. The interface will turn orange, and you will see the mic level working. 

Step 4:

Option 1: Start AI Voice for each translation channel manually

Once you want to start the translation, click the “Start AI Voice” button at each channel you want translation to work.

You will be asked if you want to set a daily runtime limit for this channel before you actually start. The reason is that we want you to be safe not to forget turning the feature off, being billed for minutes you did not intend to use the feature. Of course, you can set the limit to “unlimited” if you do not want to set a limit.

❗️ Note: You need to turn off AI features when you are done by clicking stop. Closing the web browser or computer will not stop AI features. You will be billed by minute for each channel running, so make sure when you are done to stop the AI Voice again. The daily runtime limit is an additional safety net. The time using AI features and turning them off again is your responsibility.

Option 2: Use Auto Start/Stop with source channel

When setting up AI Voice Translation you can toggle on the switch to start and stop AI automatically together with the source channel.

This means, as soon as the source channel starts streaming, AI Voice Translation will be turned on too. Once the source channel gets stopped, AI Voice Translation will also be stopped.

This is very practical for use cases like Guided Tours, where you want the translation to start and end whenever the tour guide starts or stops, without having to turn on or off anything manually.

Note that when activating this feature, you will be billed for AI minutes as soon as the source channel gets started!

Glossary:

For PRO customers there is the option to create glossaries. This allows you to enhance the AI recognition of special words like company names, and make sure that the AI translates certain words exactly the way you want. Learn more about glossaries here.

BILLING NOTES:

Costs depend on the time you are using the feature. It will be billed by minute. Once a week you will get the invoice for all used minutes within that week. If you have used minutes worth more than 250€ on a given day, you will be billed right away at the end of that day.

Minutes start counting as soon as you click “Start AI Voice” and will end when you click stop.