Instagram Announces Automatic In-App Text Translation Feature

Instagram has announced that it is developing a text translation feature for its flagship app that will roll out in the coming month.

Once live, users will see a new "See Translation" button beneath photos and user profiles which will automatically translate comments, captions, and bios into the language chosen in the app's settings.

The machine translation feature will support 24 languages to begin with, but the option won't show on older comments or those it doesn't recognize the language of.

In the coming month, you’ll see a translation button on feed stories and profile bios written in languages different from your own. The Instagram community has grown faster and become more global than we ever imagined. And we’re excited that you’ll soon be able to understand the full story of a moment, no matter what language you speak. To learn more about translation on Instagram, check out help.instagram.com.

A photo posted by Instagram (@instagram) on Jun 22, 2016 at 10:00am PDT

Twitter and Facebook have offered automatic translation features for a while now, so the introduction of the feature brings the service in line with the other big social networks.

Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has been busy tweaking its platform recently, with a new logo and a redesigned app among the changes.

Earlier this week, it announced that the photo-based social network is now used by over 500 million people, with 300 million using the app every day and 80 percent of users living outside the U.S.