Our Analysts' Insights

Enterprises that used to hold in-person events for customers, employees, partners, or investors have tried to move efficiently to a virtual format over the last few months. Despite the challenges, many organizations succeeded at the conversion, but a disproportionate number were only able to offer prerecorded content with offline subtitling. Companies are now pausing to reflect on the first wave of events and investigate the entire array of alternatives available for supporting these multilingua...

Remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) platforms create a virtual booth where interpreters can pass the microphone back and forth as they interpret an event in real-time. They are designed to eliminate communication barriers on calls and in meetings, conferences, and other event types, so that participants who do not speak the same language can still participate in the exchange.

Enterprises that were used to holding in-person events for customers, employees, partners, or investors have been taken by surprise by the social distancing rules and reluctance to travel due to COVID-19. They must figure out – and fast – how to deliver rich participant experiences in a virtual format. And that is a tall order. Many localization teams have been forced to create miracles in short time frames to transition multi-day, on-location extravaganzas to similarly engaging virtual events.

In our early-in-the-pandemic call for action by company leaders, CSA Research recommended that companies “learn from this experience and get ready now for when the crisis ends.” We echoed that advice in our report on the future of language services. Over the last few weeks we’ve been briefed by several LSPs and translation technology vendors about how they have used the slowdown to push new initiatives and projects and, as we suggested, develop new products. They said that the pandemic’s dis...

Most people frown upon the idea of talking to machines, yet they are already encountering them in everyday conversations. For example, when you call a bank or utility company, you probably start the conversation with a bot that triages the request and escalates the conversation to a human call agent when it reaches the limits of its capabilities. There is no longer a need for a human to tell you your credit card balance. Likewise, there is no need for a human interpreter if a nurse checks on the...

CSA Research surveyed freelance linguists worldwide in mid- to late April to see how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected them as providers of language services. These are the overall results from the 1,228 responses received from 100 countries.

The language services industry is in disarray. Engrained ways of providing interpreting services became obsolete in a matter of days due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations that use interpreting services, language service providers, technology vendors, and interpreters are struggling to comprehend the new reality and adapt to it.

The COVID-19 crisis has hit interpreting-focused language service providers particularly hard. Those with a mostly in-person offering are experiencing significant drops in bookings. Many are trying to offset this loss by transitioning customers to remote interpreting technologies or promoting translation services. Even LSPs with a focus on remote services are facing some losses due to the cancellation of nonessential engagements in healthcare, emergency services, and courts.

In a separate blog post ("AB5, COVID-19, and the Plight of Freelance Linguists"), we examined some of the challenges that freelance linguists face right now on two fronts: COVID-19 and changes to labor law – focusing on the situation in California – that have created difficulties for individuals who work as contractors for many LSPs or clients. In this post, we turn to some of the concrete actions that LSPs, end buyers, and linguists themselves can take to improve the situation of th...

The COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty about California Bill 5 (AB5) and similar laws have created turbulence for freelance linguists. Together, they show both the strengths and challenges that the translators and interpreters who power the industry face. COVID-19 has shown how precarious a position many of them are in, including highly successful professionals. Regardless of whether linguists are employees or freelancers, the current situation demonstrates how interconnected all parties are and ...