AI Translations is an AI-powered translation feature that helps your organization serve community members in multiple languages without maintaining separate communities for each locale.
When enabled, it can automatically translate supported content and key interface elements into the viewer’s preferred language, so members can read discussions, replies, and other key content in the language that’s most comfortable for them, while still allowing them to switch back to the original authored text when needed.
AI Translations respects both Admin control and user choice:
- Admins control which languages are available for translation, and if your community uses subcommunities, which subcommunities have AI Translation enabled.
- Users can opt out of AI processing for their own content.
IMPORTANT: For privacy and data management reasons, AI Translations doesn't translate sensitive details like user names and email addresses.
Overview
AI Translations is designed to support multilingual communities without having to create and maintain separate language-specific subcommunities for every audience.
AI Translations:
- Uses AI to translate user-generated content and key UI text into a user's preferred language.
- Supports translations for posts, comments, private messages, notifications, and more.
- Preserves the original authored language, allowing users to switch back to it at any time.
- Respects AI-processing opt-out rules, so content authored by users who have opted out of AI processing does not get translated, including when quoted on other pages.
Availability
AI Translations is available for select Vanilla Community plans. If you’re interested in enabling this feature for your community, contact your CSM for more information.
IMPORTANT: Once enabled, only new and recently edited content is translated, by default.
To translate historical content, include it in an approved Site Structure plan. Site Structure can handle historical translation up to approximately $300 in AI token usage. A larger historical-translation project requires a paid Statement of Work (SOW). Contact Vanilla Support or your CSM to review the scope and available options.
How to enable AI Translations
Step 1: Have the AI Translations feature enabled for your community
Currently, you must Contact Vanilla Support and request that AI Translations be enabled for your community.
NOTE: In the future, Admins will be able to turn AI Translations ON/OFF.
Step 2: Enable at least one additional language
Once AI Translations has been enabled:
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to Settings > Translation Settings.
- On the Translation Settings page, enable at least one additional language beyond your default language. These enabled languages are the languages users will be able to translate content into.
NOTE: The available languages and the total number of languages you can enable may vary by plan. Contact your CSM if you have questions about your community’s AI Translations access.
TIP: You can drag and drop the languages using the grid icons to the left. This allows you to control in which order the languages display to your users in your community (refer to the image below).
Step 3: Confirm the translation feature is available
Once the feature is enabled and at least one additional language is configured, the language picker displays in the community header, at the top right.
Plan your language structure
Use Site Structure to choose how manual and AI-translated language experiences fit together in your community.
Your community has one global content area. It uses either the default static language or AI Languages. Every separately navigable experience outside that global area must be represented as a subcommunity.
You can choose one of these language structures:
- Single Static Language — Use the default static language in the global area. If members need a separate destination in another static language, create a subcommunity for it.
- Static Subcommunity Languages — Keep the default static language in the global area and use separate, manually translated subcommunities for other language destinations.
- AI Languages — Make the global area the AI Languages community. Existing subcommunities included in the migration are removed, and their Categories and Knowledge Bases are moved into the global AI Languages area.
- AI Languages and Static Subcommunity Languages — Use AI Languages for the global area while keeping selected subcommunities as separate static-language or AI-translated destinations.
Static-language subcommunities are useful when different language or regional communities need independent editorial control, different information, or content that should not be automatically translated.
NOTE: Choosing a language structure does not enable AI Translations or change the number of languages available to your community. The availability, enablement, supported-content, user-choice, and data-handling guidance elsewhere in this article continues to apply.
IMPORTANT: Choosing AI Languages for the global area is a structural consolidation, not just a translation setting. Existing subcommunities included in that migration are removed, and their Categories and Knowledge Bases are moved into the global AI Languages area. Review the migration warning and all pending operations before applying the plan.
Review each subcommunity in a hybrid structure
With a hybrid language structure, review each existing subcommunity separately. For each subcommunity, you can:
- Keep as Static Language Subcommunity — Keep the subcommunity separate and manually translated.
- Move Categories to AI Languages — Move its community Categories to the global AI Languages area while keeping the subcommunity and its Knowledge Bases in place. The retained subcommunity can become a Knowledge-Base-only destination.
- Move All Content to AI Languages — Move its Categories and Knowledge Bases to the global AI Languages area and remove the now-empty subcommunity.
- Set Subcommunity to AI Translation — Keep the subcommunity as a separate destination and use AI translation for its content.
Plan Category merges during migration
When Categories from several existing subcommunities move into the global AI Languages area, you can organize equivalent Categories into merge sets.
- Add the related Categories to a merge set.
- Use suggested merges as a starting point, not an automatic decision.
- Confirm that the Categories represent the same topic and choose which Category's settings should be retained.
- Keep Categories separate when similar names hide meaningful regional, regulatory, audience, or workflow differences.
- Review the merge operation under Pending Operations before applying the plan.
Translate historical content through Site Structure
When historical-content translation is included in your approved migration scope, you can select eligible admin-generated and user-generated content to translate. Review the content types, translated and untranslated counts, and selected time range before applying the plan. The exact inventory depends on your community's configuration, and completion time depends on the amount of content selected and the size and history of the community.
Because token usage and processing time depend on the amount of content selected, set timeline expectations against the content types, counts, and date range in your plan. You do not have to translate all historical content at once. As a best practice, start with recent or high-value content, or a smaller date range, and expand in later plans if needed. Larger communities and longer date ranges may take more time to complete.
IMPORTANT: Historical content is not translated automatically. AI-processing preferences and the personal-data guidance in this article continue to apply.
Site Structure can handle historical translation up to approximately $300 in AI token usage. A larger historical-translation project requires a paid Statement of Work (SOW). Contact Vanilla Support or your CSM to review the scope and available options before applying the plan.
Historical translation progress in Site Structure
Review and apply the plan
Changes made in Site Structure are staged in a draft plan and listed under Pending Operations. They do not affect members until you apply the plan. Review the content location, permissions, language handling, and member navigation before applying the plan.
See Site Structure Plans to learn how to review, apply, and monitor a plan.
Translation Settings
The Translation Settings page is currently available on staging with Release 2026.017. Depending on your community's configuration and plan, the page includes Custom Translation Terms, Machine Translation Providers, AI Translated Languages, and Ignore List.
To open the page:
- Access the Dashboard.
- Open Settings.
- Select Translation Settings.
Custom Translation Terms for user-generated content
When AI Translations is enabled, use Custom Translation Terms to define preferred wording for important terms in user-generated content. Custom terms are applied before automatic translation to help keep product names, branded terms, and community-specific language consistent.
For the system-term override workflow and guidance that also applies when AI Translations is not enabled, see Override System Terms with Custom Translation Terms.
Optional setup for subcommunities
To be deprecated with Release 2026.017: The legacy per-subcommunity AI Translation toggle is retained temporarily for compatibility while Site Structure rollout completes. This temporary note will be removed after Release 2026.017 is available in all customer environments. See Release 2026.017 release notes.
If your Vanilla Community leverages subcommunities, you must manually enable AI Translation for each subcommunity before the feature is available for them.
To turn ON/OFF AI Translations for a subcommunity:
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to Settings > Posts > Subcommunities.
- Edit a subcommunity.
- Toggle ON/OFF the Enable AI Translations for this Subcommunity toggle.
When the toggle is turned on:
- the Locale field remains visible but is disabled; it now displays "AI Translated."
- the subcommunity no longer uses a manually assigned default locale
Style Guides by language
With the AI Translations feature, you can create Style Guides for each of your enabled languages, allowing you to give users a more fully localized experience than text translation alone.
While AI Translations can translate visible text, it cannot translate certain Style Guide elements, such as the privacy policy, documentation links, or regional resources a user should see. A language-specific Style Guide solves that by letting you apply a full Style Guide based on the user’s language.
A language-specific Style Guide can affect the full themed experience, including:
- title bar navigation
- quick links
- header content
- footer content
- logo
- colors
- typography
When it comes to applying Style Guides by language, the method depends on whether your Vanilla community leverages subcommunities or not:
- If you don't use subcommunities, you can apply Styles Guides by language at the site level.
- If you do use subcommunities, you instead apply Style Guides at the subcommunity level.
If a language has no specific assignment, Vanilla falls back to the appropriate default:
- site default Style Guide when subcommunities are not enabled
- subcommunity default Style Guide when they are.
Apply Style Guides by language at the site level
If you're not using subcommunities, you can assign a different Style Guide to each of your enabled languages. This lets you localize theme-controlled elements, such as the title bar, header, footer, quick links, logo, colors, and typography, in addition to translated text.
Once you've created Style Guides for the languages you want to target:
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to Appearance > Style Guides.
- Hover over a Style Guide and click Apply.
- In the popup, click the Apply to specific languages option.
- Click the Languages dropdown and assign it to one or more enabled languages.
- Save your changes.
If a user's language has a Style Guide assigned, Vanilla applies that full Style Guide. If not, Vanilla uses the default Style Guide instead.
Apply Style Guides by language at the subcommunity level
If you use AI-translated subcommunities, configure their default and language-specific Style Guides in Site Structure.
To manage Style Guides for an AI-translated subcommunity:
- Access the Dashboard and open Site Structure.
- Find the subcommunity and select Manage Style Guides from its actions menu.
- Under Style Guide (Theme), select the default Style Guide for the subcommunity. Select Site Default to use the site's default Style Guide; select another Style Guide to set a subcommunity-specific default.
- To assign a different guide to a language, select Add Language Override, then choose the language and Style Guide. Repeat for other languages as needed.
- Select Save. Review the resulting operation under Pending Operations, then apply the Site Structure plan for the changes to affect members.
A language-specific override takes precedence for its language. For other languages, Vanilla uses the subcommunity's default Style Guide. If a subcommunity default is unavailable, Vanilla uses the site default.
How to translate content
You can use AI Translations in three ways to enhance your community experience. Each one serves a different purpose, so let's review all three so you understand how they work and when to use each one.
1. Use the Language & Translation setting in your profile to set your preference
On your profile's Account & Privacy Settings page, use the Language & Translation dropdown to set your "default" preferred language across the community.
2. Use the language picker to change your current view
The language picker is the primary front end control for AI Translations. Use it when you want to change the language you're currently viewing in the community.
3. Use the View Original and View Translation toggle to switch between versions
When you're viewing supported content in a different language than the one in which it was originally written, Vanilla automatically displays the translated version of the content.
If you want to check the original authored text for a specific item, click the View Original toggle next to that post or comment. After you switch to the original version, you can click View Translation to switch back to the translated version.
You may not see these controls on every post or comment. They appear only on supported content where a translated version is available, and they do not appear when you are already viewing the content in its original language.
EXAMPLE: In the image below, my language is set to English, whereas the comment was authored in French. Because of this, the toggle says "View Original" to indicate I can switch it to the original, French language.
If I click the button to translate the comment to French, the button then changes to "View Translation" to indicate the ability to translate it to my preferred language (English).
What content is translated
Currently, AI Translations translates the following content and interface elements.
Core content
- Discussion posts
- Comments and replies
- Knowledge Base articles in the global AI Languages area or an AI-translated subcommunity
- Private messages
- Events, including titles, descriptions, listing content, and event-page interface text
- Custom Post Type display labels
Knowledge Bases follow their subcommunity’s language model. Knowledge Bases in a static-language subcommunity are not AI translated. You cannot mix AI-translated and manually translated Knowledge Bases within the same subcommunity.
Search
Users can search in any configured language and discover supported content originally authored in another language. Search-result titles, snippets, metadata, filters, and controls display in the user’s active language.
Ideation
- Idea statuses
- Ideation notes, such as status explanations
Taxonomy and navigation
- Tags
- Group names and descriptions
- Category names and descriptions
- Three-dot menu actions, including supported integration actions
Member and profile experiences
- User-card and profile-page interface text
- Registration and profile-field labels, descriptions, option labels, and validation messages
- Role names
- Badge names and descriptions
- Rank names, descriptions, and rank-achievement messages
User-entered profile-field values are not automatically translated.
Layouts and widgets
- Custom-layout titles and descriptions
- Text displayed by supported dynamic-content widgets
Moderation
- Report-modal interface text
- Custom report-reason labels and descriptions
- Post content displayed in Community Management Dashboard Triage, Reports, and Escalation queues
Notifications
- In-app and email notifications, where supported
- Rank-achievement notifications
Quoted content
Quoted rich embeds, such as quoted posts in a discussion, follow the page’s translation behavior while respecting AI-processing preferences:
- By default, eligible quoted content translates into the viewer’s preferred language when AI Translations is active.
- If the quoted author has opted out of AI processing, their quoted content remains in its original language.
- The existing View original post action displays the source post and its quotes in their original language.
IMPORTANT: Pages containing content from authors with different AI-processing preferences may display a mix of translated and untranslated content.
Set your AI processing preference
You can control whether your contributed content can be processed by AI for translation purposes. To configure your preferences:
- Access your profile's Account & Privacy Settings page.
- Scroll down to the AI Settings section.
- The Allow AI tools to process my content checkbox controls whether any of Vanilla's AI tools can process your content.
- If unchecked, no AI tool, including AI Translations, can process your content.
- If checked, you can then granularly control which AI tools can process it.
- Check or uncheck the Allow AI Translations box to control whether AI Translations can process and translate your content.
When disabled (opted out), your content:
- Stays in your original authored language, even on translated pages.
- Stays in the original language when quoted by other users as rich embeds.
Personal data handling
AI Translations is designed to reduce privacy risk while still making supported content easier to read in multiple languages.
First, AI Translations doesn't translate names and email addresses. This helps keep personal data recognizable and easier to find if you need to review, delete, or respond to a data privacy request later.
Second, users can control whether their own content is eligible for AI translation. If a user disables the Allow AI Translations preference on their profile, their authored content stays in its original language, including when that content is quoted by someone else on a translated page.
Your organization is still responsible for the personal data stored in your community. AI Translations does not remove your responsibility to manage that data accurately, lawfully, and in a way that supports privacy operations.
Email digest translations
While AI Translations does not translate email digest content, you can manually create per-language versions of the email digest Subject Line, Intro, and Footer. You can add and manage one version per-enabled language.
- The translated footer is custom text entered by an Admin; it is not auto-translated by the system.
- When a translation exists for a user’s preferred language, Vanilla sends the translated Subject Line, Intro, and Footer for that language.
- If no translation exists for that language, Vanilla sends the default-language version instead.
NOTE: Rich-text formatting in the Intro and Footer is preserved, links remain valid, and supported tokens or placeholders continue to function.
Manage email digest translations
NOTE: The steps in the How to enable AI Translations section of this article must be complete before following these steps.
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to Settings > Communications > Digest Settings.
- In the Content section, click Translate.
- In the dialog, your source language content is shown on the left; on the right, select the target language you want to add from the dropdown. You can select from any of your enabled languages.
- Enter the translated Subject Line, Intro, and Footer for that language into their respective text fields.
- Click Save to store the translated version for that language.
- Repeat this process for each additional language you want to support.
NOTE: If you need to update any of your saved language translations, simply return to this page, click the Translate button, select the language you want to update from the dropdown, and make your adjustments.
Global email footer translations
In addition to the Email Digest translation options discussed above, Vanilla also supports translated versions of the global Email Footer used in outgoing notification emails. Admins can add and manage one footer version per-enabled language so recipients receive footer content in their preferred language.
- The translated footer is custom text entered by an Admin; it is not auto-translated by the system.
- If a footer translation exists for the recipient’s preferred language, that version is sent. If not, Vanilla sends the default-language footer.
NOTE: Rich-text formatting, links, and supported tokens continue to work in translated footer content.
Manage global email footer translations
NOTE: The steps in the How to enable AI Translations section of this article must be complete before following these steps.
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to Settings > Communications > Email Settings.
- In the Email Notifications section, locate the Email Footer field. If your community has multiple languages enabled, click Translate.
- In the dialog, your source language content is shown on the left; on the right, select the target language you want to add from the dropdown. You can select from any of your enabled languages.
- Enter the translated footer content for that language.
- Click Save to store the translated footer version.
- Repeat this process for each additional language you want to support.
NOTE: If you need to update any of your saved language translations, simply return to this page, click the Translate button, select the language you want to update from the dropdown, and make your adjustments.
Why is content not translating?
Some community content may not translate for a few expected reasons:
- The content might have been created before AI Translations was turned on
- Remember, AI Translations only works with new or recently edited content, by default.
- The user who created the content may have opted out of AI features in general or AI Translations specifically.
- The user viewing the content may have opted out of AI features in general or AI Translations specifically.
- The content may be in a language that is not configured for your community.
- The content may be in a subcommunity that is not configured for AI Translations.
- Specific words or terms may be included in the site’s Ignore List.
- An individual’s username, first name, last name, and email address will not be translated.
If a Knowledge Base article still does not translate or displays a “not found” error after you check the settings above, contact Vanilla Support to confirm your community’s configuration and whether the relevant fixes are deployed on its current version.
Supported languages
The following languages can be translated by the AI Translations feature:
- 🇦🇱 Albanian
- 🇪🇹 Amharic
- 🇸🇦 Arabic
- 🇦🇲 Armenian
- 🇧🇩 Bengali
- 🇧🇦 Bosnian
- 🇧🇬 Bulgarian
- 🇲🇲 Burmese
- 🇪🇸 Catalan
- 🇨🇳 Chinese
- 🇭🇷 Croatian
- 🇨🇿 Czech
- 🇩🇰 Danish
- 🇳🇱 Dutch
- 🇪🇪 Estonian
- 🇫🇮 Finnish
- 🇫🇷 French
- 🇬🇪 Georgian
- 🇩🇪 German
- 🇬🇷 Greek
- 🇮🇳 Gujarati
- 🇮🇳 Hindi
- 🇭🇺 Hungarian
- 🇮🇸 Icelandic
- 🇮🇩 Indonesian
- 🇮🇹 Italian
- 🇯🇵 Japanese
- 🇮🇳 Kannada
- 🇰🇿 Kazakh
- 🇰🇷 Korean
- 🇱🇻 Latvian
- 🇱🇹 Lithuanian
- 🇲🇰 Macedonian
- 🇲🇾 Malay
- 🇮🇳 Malayalam
- 🇮🇳 Marathi
- 🇲🇳 Mongolian
- 🇳🇴 Norwegian
- 🇮🇷 Persian
- 🇵🇱 Polish
- 🇵🇹 Portuguese
- 🇮🇳 Punjabi
- 🇷🇴 Romanian
- 🇷🇺 Russian
- 🇷🇸 Serbian
- 🇸🇰 Slovak
- 🇸🇮 Slovenian
- 🇸🇴 Somali
- 🇪🇸 Spanish
- 🇰🇪 Swahili
- 🇸🇪 Swedish
- 🇵🇭 Tagalog
- 🇮🇳 Tamil
- 🇮🇳 Telugu
- 🇹🇭 Thai
- 🇹🇷 Turkish
- 🇺🇦 Ukrainian
- 🇵🇰 Urdu
- 🇻🇳 Vietnamese
IMPORTANT: AI Language Translation is provided at the language level listed above. Vanilla does not warrant the accuracy, quality, or completeness of AI-generated translations, which may vary by language, content type, and subject matter. Translation quality is dependent on the underlying AI model, and regional dialect or locale-specific variants within a supported language are not guaranteed.