Amazon Is Automatically Translating the Text Inside Your Secondary Product Images Across 14 Stores — No Opt-In, and the Only Way to Override It Is to Upload Your Own Localized Image
Amazon posted a Seller Central announcement in early August 2026 confirming that it now automatically translates the text baked into product images into the shopper's preferred language, across 14 stores. The feature is on by default with no seller action required. Your main image is not touched — the translation applies to secondary images, which is where infographics, comparison charts, spec callouts, and packaging text normally live. Amazon says the translations run through AI with quality guardrails before publishing and that brand elements, product specifications, and visual quality are preserved. The practical catch for brand owners is that image copy nobody on their team wrote can now appear on the detail page, and the documented way to replace it is to upload your own image in the correct language, which removes Amazon's translated version from that detail page.
Real-World Impact
The scope is set by store count rather than by fee: a brand selling in all 14 named stores with, say, six text-bearing secondary images per ASIN has 84 image slots per ASIN where an AI-generated language variant can appear without anyone on the brand team approving the wording. Replacing all of them means uploading localized images for each store-language combination, since Amazon's documented override is per-image upload.
Key Points
- Amazon automatically translates text inside product images into the customer's preferred language, with no opt-in step and no seller action required
- The 14 stores named in the announcement are the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Ireland, Sweden, and the UK
- The main image is explicitly excluded — Amazon states it will not be translated, so only secondary images are in scope
- Amazon says the translations use AI with quality guardrails applied before publishing, and that brand elements, product specifications, and visual quality are preserved during translation
- Amazon frames the benefit as letting customers read product information in their preferred language, which it says can reduce returns and increase sales
- Uploading your own image in the correct language automatically removes Amazon's translated version from that product detail page — this is the override path Amazon documents
- The original image stays unchanged in the store's primary language; translation produces language variants shown to shoppers whose preference differs
What You Should Do Now
- 1Pull up your top ASINs in the non-primary languages of the stores you sell in and look at the secondary images as a shopper would, so you see the generated copy rather than your source file
- 2Prioritize review of any image text that carries a legal, safety, compliance, or substantiated performance claim — a machine translation of a regulated claim is a compliance exposure, not just a wording problem
- 3Check trademarked taglines, brand names, and coined product terms specifically, since these are the strings most likely to be translated when they should have been left alone
- 4For any image where the generated wording is wrong or risky, upload your own image in the correct language, which Amazon says removes its translated version from that detail page
- 5Build localized secondary images into your standard listing-launch checklist for the 14 covered stores rather than treating localization as a post-launch fix