Microsoft has started experimenting with a notable new feature in Edge 141.0.3537.13 (beta): live audio translation for videos. This AI-powered tool allows users to translate the spoken audio of a video into their preferred language in real time.
While still in preview, it marks an ambitious step for the browser—but also comes with some heavy system requirements and limitations.
How Live Audio Translation Works
The feature, currently labeled “Offer to translate videos on supported sites” in Settings, isn’t immediately available to all beta users. It requires a fairly powerful PC to function:
- Minimum system requirements: 12 GB RAM and a quad-core CPU.
- On a machine with 16 GB RAM, Windows 11 alone consumes about 25%, leaving only ~12 GB free—the bare minimum needed.
Once enabled, a floating toolbar appears during video playback on supported platforms. During testing, it only worked on YouTube and supported just three input languages—English, Spanish, and Korean.
When activated, the feature downloads an AI model, mutes the original video’s audio, and begins generating the translated track instantly. Latency was minimal, though accuracy is still hard to gauge without fluency in the source language.
A quirky issue was noted: in some instances, the system produced two voices (male and female) for a single speaker when pitch or tone changed, creating a distracting effect.
- Because the translation process consumes a large chunk of memory, running other apps alongside may be difficult.
- The tool runs continuously until stopped, meaning Edge can hog resources during translation sessions.
- Its limited site compatibility makes it more of a preview experiment than a full-fledged feature for now.
Other Changes Coming to Edge
Beyond live translation, Microsoft is preparing several broader updates and deprecations:
- PDF Engine Overhaul
- Starting in October 2025, Edge will replace its legacy PDF engine with Adobe’s PDF engine for enterprise users.
- This change comes with an Adobe-branded interface, including a logo and menu bar for editing—though editing requires an Adobe plan.
- Deprecated EdgeHTML Features (set for removal in Edge Beta 142):
- Legacy Web View
- Windows 8/8.1/UWP HTML/JavaScript apps (Hosted Web Applications and Windows Web Applications)
- Legacy Progressive Web Apps (PWA)
- Legacy Edge (EdgeHTML) DevTools
- Security and Enterprise Updates
- A new option will allow users to block websites from requesting local network access, bolstering network security.
- Enterprise admins gain new policies to:
- Control tab preview details.
- Manage the visibility of the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat icon in Edge.
With these updates, Microsoft is signaling a future where AI integration, Adobe partnerships, and tighter enterprise controls play a central role in Edge’s evolution.
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