Key Takeaways
Rapid Market Entry: AI significantly reduces the time required to translate global content and, accelerates market access.
Quality Translations on Demand: Leveraging advanced LLMs like GPT, AI delivers immediate, high-quality translations, bypassing the lengthy training periods typical of traditional machine translations.
Cost and Time Efficiency: AI enhances productivity and reduces translation costs, making global expansion more accessible for companies of all sizes.
Continuous Improvement and Customization: With AI-powered machine translation, translations will continuously improve in accuracy and can be customized for specific industry requirements, ensuring enhanced relevance and precision.
Faster Time to Market: AI-powered translation tools drastically reduce the time required to translate global content, accelerating market entry and providing a competitive edge in accessing international markets.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a key part of many industries and its daily content-creation and localization activities. Thanks to AI technologies such as neural machine translation (NMT), and large language models like GPT , companies can produce content and localize it faster and in a more human-like way than ever before.
AI translation technology is opening doors for organizations to go global more quickly and cost-efficiently than ever before—whether it’s high-quality localized content, customer service chatbots, resonating social media posts or product documentation translated in a fraction of a time than it took merely a few months or years ago. Content which can be translated more quickly and accurately—and at a lower cost—makes AI translation technology a highly appealing feature to organizations.
In this blog, we’ll look at the four main benefits of using artificial intelligence in translation.
#1 Decreased Time to Market
AI tools can produce accurate, human-like translations within a matter of seconds, can align existing translation memories, and convert partially translated content into fully translated content (100% matches)— none of which with any human input required. This way, linguists can focus on translating new segments only or on post-editing, taking content quality to the next level rather than spending time on manual, time-consuming tasks that don’t provide as much value.
With faster and higher-quality translations, organizations decrease their time-to-market. Faster time-to-market means companies can gain or maintain a competitive advantage by reaching customers more quickly, resulting in increased market share and potential revenue growth.
#2 Better and Faster Machine-translated Content
Machine translation engines take time to be trained, which means that post-editing tasks can be quite time-consuming until they’re at the desired level of quality. Large language models (LLMs) like GPT do not require this “training time” and can produce quality translations at the first attempt (zero-shot learning). This means that companies that leverage LLMs can obtain higher-quality translations from the get-go, without having to wait to train the machine-translation engine.
#3 Increased Cost-effectiveness
The most prominent question that has been floating around the language industry in the past 12-24 months is whether AI will be taking linguists’ jobs. The consensus seems to be that no, it won’t take linguists’ jobs but rather make them more productive. Increased productivity through AI language translation means that processes are going to be completed in less time, reducing expenses and costly delays.
Producing high-quality localized content off the bat thanks to AI means that smaller-budget companies can go global without costs spiraling out of control. And companies who need to produce high volumes of localized product content in order to enter a new market (automotive, pharmaceutical, etc.) can do so in very little time and with minimal post-editing, if any.
#4 Higher Human Productivity
As mentioned above, AI will enable linguists to be more productive with their time. While AI may take the first pass at translation, linguists will still be involved in the localization process and contribute to more value-added responsibilities.
Human linguists provide a level of accuracy that machines just cannot reach, even if it’s the 1% that allows localized content to reach 100% quality. In areas with specialized and complex terminology and concepts, such as legal, medical, and technical, human input is strictly necessary. Since the target content they receive from AI-generated translations will require less post-editing than before, humans can focus on working on the finer details that add the real value to localized content, making it better than ever before and in a fraction of the time.
#5 Breaking Down Language Barriers
The introduction of AI language translation has further reduced the language barriers that once held back global communication. This breakthrough is particularly valuable for large enterprises and Language Service Providers (LSPs) aiming to engage with a diverse, international audience. For enterprise-level companies looking to expand globally, real-time translation tools, powered by artificial intelligence, facilitate instant communication across different languages, offering benefits such as faster market entry, competitive advantage, higher cost-efficiency, and improved content quality, leading to higher customer acquisition and retention.
#6 Scalability
The demand for translation services is growing exponentially as businesses are expanding their global footprint. AI-powered translation tools can manage this increasing demand without compromising on the timelines or accuracy of translations. This scalability allows businesses to expand globally without incurring spiraling costs, facilitating entry into new markets.
#7 Reduced Translation Time
AI-powered language translation tools dramatically reduce the time needed to translate content. By automating complex translation processes, businesses can quickly adapt their communications for various markets. This reduction in time to market is essential for staying ahead in competitive industries and rapidly responding to global opportunities.
#8 Customization and Adaptability
AI technology can be tailored to suit specific domain requirements, terminologies, and stylistic preferences, ensuring translations are accurate and relevant to the intended audience. This adaptability makes AI indispensable for industries requiring specialized knowledge, such as legal, medical, and technical fields, where precision and context are of the utmost importance. AI-powered localization tools can expedite the translation process, providing more time for in-country reviewers (ICRs) and non-language professionals to conduct regulatory reviews.
#9 Accessibility
The proliferation of AI-powered language translation tools has significantly enhanced customer engagement and reach in all languages in real-time. With platforms offering extensive language support, these tools break down barriers to understanding and communication. AI-powered solutions, such as chatbots, provide real-time support in local languages, enhancing a brand’s image across all markets.
#10 Cost Savings
AI translation tools offer substantial cost benefits by enhancing the efficiency of the translation process, handling large volumes of work quickly and accurately. By streamlining routine tasks, AI allows businesses to optimize their resources, reduce operational costs, and allocate human expertise to more complex and value-added activities leading to overall financial efficiency and improved outcomes.
#11 Enhanced Translation Quality
AI language translation leverages advanced algorithms and deep learning to deliver high-quality translations. These tools can be customized to specific industry terminologies and stylistic preferences, ensuring accuracy and relevance. Continuous improvement capabilities mean that translation quality consistently gets better over time, providing businesses with dependable and precise communication materials.
#12 Boosted Productivity
AI translation tools add a boost to productivity by automating routine and labor-intensive translation tasks. This frees up human translators and professionals to concentrate on more strategic and creative tasks. The increase in efficiency and output contributes to higher productivity across the organization, allowing for better resource allocation and faster project completion.
AI translation technology is taking the translation process to another level of efficiency and speed. Given that AI has helped make translations faster and more accurate, companies need to take advantage of the technology if they want to remain competitive and stay ahead of the game across their global markets.
Tools like a translation management system (TMS) incorporate these AI technologies, and deploying this powerful localization technology enables companies to reap all the benefits mentioned in this blog post. With new AI technologies appearing on a regular basis, having a TMS does not only allow you to harness what’s available today, but also the technology of tomorrow.
About the Author – Rafal Jaworski
Rafał Jaworski, Ph.D., works as Principal AI Engineer at XTM International. He is an academic lecturer and scientist specializing in natural language processing techniques. His Alma Mater is Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, where he works at the Department of Artificial Intelligence. His scientific work concentrates on developing robust AI algorithms for the needs of computer-assisted translation. These include, among others, automatic lookup of linguistic resources and computer-assisted post-editing. At XTM International he leads a team of young and talented AI specialists who put his visions and ideas into practice.
Want to learn more about how AI technology can take your localization program to the next level?
We’d be delighted to help! Get in touch with us to discuss how your organization can make the most out of AI language technology, or watch our webinar on what the arrival of AI and GPT means for the present and future of language and localization.
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