IMAX taps Camb.ai to dub its original documentaries worldwide

Taking cinematic originals global usually runs into an expensive bottleneck: dubbing and localization. IMAX is now tapping AI to break that wall.

The giant-screen theater giant announced a partnership with Dubai-based startup Camb.ai to translate and dub its original catalog, beginning with documentaries.

Tiny models built without web scraping

Camb.ai was founded last year by former Apple Siri engineer Akshat Prakash and his father. Instead of competing with the monster models from OpenAI or Anthropic, Camb.ai builds lightweight, hyper-specialized speech engines, some running under 100 million parameters.

Its secret sauce lies in clean data and specialized audio layering. Prakash noted that Camb.ai completely avoids web scraping to dodge copyright headaches. Around 70% of its pre-training data comes from commercially licensed academic datasets, while the remaining 30% comes from fine-tuning with early commercial partners.

The system relies on two proprietary models inside its DubStudio platform. Boli handles speech-to-text translation across 140 languages, preserving regional nuance. Then Mars takes over to emulate speech, keeping ambient audio like crowd cheering and background scoring intact alongside the voice.

The tech has already seen real-world combat across live sports, powering broadcasts for the Australian Open, Eurovision Sport, and Major League Soccer. It can translate up to 10 languages simultaneously with 20 to 30 seconds of latency, which fits right within standard broadcast delays.

Why it matters

Global viewing habits are shifting fast. PwC projects global entertainment and media will expand from $2.8 trillion in 2023 to $3.4 trillion over the next five years. Crucially, non-English programming is booming even in English-first territories; Netflix reported a 90% jump in non-English viewership in the UK over three years.

For IMAX, rolling out localized originals in high-resource languages first is a textbook move to unlock international box office value without traditional localization bills. IMAX Global President Mark Welton confirmed the AI rollout will deliver cost savings.

We think Camb.ai's playbook offers a blueprint for enterprise AI adoption. By keeping models tiny, domain-specific, and strictly trained on legally clean data, they make enterprise legal teams happy. The real test now is whether synthetic voices can hold up under the unforgiving acoustic power of a real IMAX theater.