Shopify brand voice for AI translations — tone in the request, not a lock

German is on. “Our fabrics feel soft” becomes a perfectly grammatical sentence that sounds like a manual. You write short, second person, no superlatives. The job translated the words. It did not bring the voice.

Shopify brand voice AI translation is tone, formality, prefer/avoid — sent with the AI request in OO - Ultimate AI Translations. What is OO Translations?: glossary and brand voice so AI stays on-brand. Listing line: *Set a glossary and a tone of voice so every translation sounds like your brand.*

Free $0: your own AI, unlimited languages/markets/translations, language switcher; no backups, no scheduled jobs, no App AI. Professional $10/month + usage: monthly schedule, glossary, 1+1 backup, App AI at ~$0.01/unit (pass-through) or your own AI. Plus $20: daily, 5+5 backups. 0 reviews, launched 14 October 2026. Do not invent a score.

Live: translation job history. Earlier: translate the store with ChatGPT. This is the voice, not the Jobs table.

Voice is not a lock and not a glossary

Locks: a field you save in the editor stays locked. Scheduled/automatic jobs will not overwrite it until you unlock.

Glossary: a pinned term per language inside the prompt. “Peak” stays Peak. The listing puts Glossary on Professional. Do not sell a term-list checkbox on Free.

Brand voice: same family as glossary — rides on the request, not a field lock. Tone (dry vs warm), formality (you vs Sie), prefer (“collection”, not “range”), avoid (no “unique!!”, no “best in the world”). Quick start places brand voice + glossary after Connect AI. Check paid-plan limits; do not bundle it with the Free switcher.

Jobs already skip handles, URLs, IDs, SKUs, barcodes, size codes S/M/L, JSON, empty source, locked fields. You do not need “SKU” on the avoid list.

Own AI on Free translates without the Professional prompt wrapper. Same model on $10 with glossary/voice on the request: the difference is the prompt, not a fancier LLM. App AI on Professional/Plus is ~$0.01 per unit, billed at translation cost; you may keep your own key on $10.

How shops end up sounding like a generic model

A ChatGPT tab, whole catalog, no voice. Formality drifts chat to chat.

Translate & Adapt only. Fields fill. No prefer/avoid travelling with a scheduled job.

Treating voice as a rewritten sentence lock. A lock freezes *your* German. Voice steers the next Missing run. Outdated (source changed) gets voice again — if the field is unlocked.

Stuffing brand names into avoid. That is glossary. Avoid is tone (“no exclamation marks”), not “do not translate Peak”.

What rides on the job

Side-by-side editor: source vs target. Jobs for Missing or Outdated. Content types: products, collections, pages, theme, metaobjects, draft themes — when those types are on the job. Same request, same voice.

The storefront switcher is Free; it does not translate product titles. Do not confuse chrome with voice.

Backups: not on Free. Professional 1+1, Plus 5+5. First large run with a new voice: backup on a paid plan, or accept that Free has no restore point.

CSV/Excel on the listing is “works with”, not a second brand-voice sheet. Tone lives in the UI, not a side column next to the job.

Walkthrough: informal English, Sie in German, no superlatives

Fashion store, English live, German in Markets. Short titles. Descriptions without “amazing”. German buyers expect Sie on the PDP.

1. Professional (glossary lives there; brand voice sits beside that step). Own AI can stay; App AI is optional.

2. Publish languages. Connect AI or App AI.

3. Brand voice: Sie for DE. Avoid: superlatives, exclamation marks. Prefer: product words that are not brand names — names go in the glossary.

4. Small job: products, Missing, German only. Jobs: failed is key/model/credits; skipped handles are healthy.

5. Sample descriptions. Too loose? Tighten avoid, do not lock a hundred rows. Too literal? Prefer. One legal sentence: editor, save, lock.

6. Then the monthly schedule. Voice travels. A lock stays a lock.

Theme header is theme content. Same voice if that type is on the job. Metaobjects likewise. Draft themes: listing; schedules are Professional monthly / Plus daily — Free has no schedule.

Do this next

1. Install OO - Ultimate AI Translations. Free if you only want your own AI. Professional once tone and brand names must ride on jobs.

2. Connect AI or App AI (~$0.01/unit, pass-through).

3. Brand voice: tone, formality, prefer/avoid. Glossary separately for names.

4. Missing job. Read history. Locks for exceptions.

5. Switcher is Free and does not carry voice. Backup before a mass run: not on $0.

Scheduled jobs (Professional monthly, Plus daily) send the same voice as a manual run. Changing voice after German titles are filled does not rewrite them: they are not Missing. Outdated means the source changed. Unlock and rerun, or edit and lock.

Wrap

Shopify brand voice AI translation is tone on the request: formality, prefer, avoid. Not a lock. Not a brand-name list — that is glossary on Professional. Free is own AI and a switcher, no schedule, no backup, no App AI.

Set the voice before the next job, on the listing. One sharp avoid rule beats fifty locks after the fact.