Our Analysts' Insights

Some people feel that using artificial intelligence (AI) to interpret human speech is a curse because individuals using the service could suffer harm due to mistranslations or because interpreters might lose their livelihood. Others embrace AI for all the possibilities it creates, first and foremost the ability to offer language access on a much greater scale and at a reduced cost. So which camp is right? Like so many techno-ethical questions, there is no right or wrong. It really depends on th...

While the goal for project management has long been full automation (“lights-out”), few organizations achieve it – not for translation nor interpreting services, neither at LSPs nor enterprises. Many teams have tools and processes in place to enable touch-free workflows, yet our research demonstrates a huge gap between “we have the system” and “we are using it.” While some organizations use lights-out processes for a vast amount of translation work – even most of their projects – genera...

Are you an expert project manager or interpreting scheduler? We need to talk! Project management – the shepherding of work from request to delivery, ensuring all the correct criteria are met, and in a timely manner – is not specific to the localization industry. In every area of work, from construction to international shipping, a project manager (PM) plays a leading role in satisfying customers, whether in daily personal contact or acting behind the scenes. These individuals – and the projec...

A common worry about generative AI (GenAI) is that the content that it creates may be subject to copyright claims. Our recent survey of freelance linguists reflected this concern: Copyright issues are their second most important concern with GenAI, with 74% viewing the technology negatively or strongly negatively in this regard. However, an examination of claims about copyright and how GenAI works reveals a different picture. This blog post covers details about how the technology works with its ...

During our research into multimedia localization – and all the new AI-enhanced tools that are sprouting up like toadstools after summer rain – we found many new offerings, some good or excellent, and many not-so. Startup companies with an excellent product may struggle with business processes and strategies; some are already leaders in a brand new field, unimagined a year ago; but too many others are aiming to get-rich-quick based on a worldwide appetite for tools that make everything possible...

It is incredible to think that, less than eight years after the first publicly available neural machine translation (NMT) systems appeared on the scene, some media coverage already sees NMT as so 2015. As generative AI (GenAI) really exploded into public view in 2022, it wasn’t surprising that an overactive tech press’ imagination would see it as the be-all and end-all of technology. Our recent survey with freelance linguists certainly reflects this view, with many language workers expressing ...

National variants of multinational languages such as English, French, and Spanish underscore the challenges to a government or business of providing readable content to any citizen or customer, prospect, or employee. They face what sociolinguists call varieties – that is, dialects, registers, styles, lexicons, and gender conventions – in both written and spoken language. Furthermore, usage and comprehension issues extend deep into any interaction, further affected by payment systems, regulatio...

Multimedia, transcribed audio, and AI-generated content in all the world’s digital languages join more traditional content types in filling up data centers. Together they create challenges and opportunities across organizations, raise the alarm for more oversight of content, and further the case for aligning enterprise content strategies, investment, and operations.

Large language models have been in the news a lot in November and December and the coverage has been mixed, to put it mildly. Meta posted its Galactica model on November 15 but took it down just three days later in the face of intense criticism. By contrast, when OpenAI released ChatGPT two weeks later, on November 30, the response was much more positive. Examining why the reactions were so different provides insight into the potential and limitations of machine translation (MT) as well as cauti...

Done right, website localization involves extending brand voice and all its attributes to leverage common content and shared assets such as style guides, glossaries, formal terminology management, and, of course, smart software to automate processes that keep global sites correct, current, and consistent. But what about extending that to a local experience across multiple written, spoken, and visual channels as required by each country and level – informational, localized, or hyperlocal?