SlatorPod

Katharine Allen, Director of Language Industry Learning at Boostlingo, and Dr. Bill Rivers, Principal at WP Rivers & Associates, join SlatorPod to discuss the challenges and opportunities AI brings to interpreting. Both are founding members of the Interpreting SAFE AI Task Force, which aims to guide the responsible use of AI in language services.Allen describes AI as a double-edged sword — capable of expanding multilingual access but limited in its ability to handle the nuanced human dialogue essential in fields like healthcare. She emphasizes the ongoing shift toward a hybrid model, where human interpreters collaborate with AI tools. Rivers underscores the importance of ensuring AI solutions are “fit for purpose.” Drawing from his background in computational linguistics, he explains how insufficient data, particularly for lesser-diffused languages, limits AI’s reliability. The duo express concern over the unregulated use of AI, citing examples where inaccuracies in AI translation led to significant consequences. The SAFE AI Task Force seeks to mitigate such risks by establishing guidelines and fostering collaboration across sectors.Despite these challenges, Allen is optimistic about AI’s potential to help interpreters’ preparation and productivity, such as generating context-specific glossaries or simulating practice scenarios, saving time, and improving skill development. However, she cautions against over-reliance on AI, particularly in situations requiring deep human judgment.Through the SAFE AI Task Force, Allen and Rivers advocate for collaboration and education to use AI responsibly, ensuring it serves as a tool to help interpreters rather than diminish the profession.

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, where they explore how AI is influencing content creation and translation, noting its progress and limitations. A recent study on GPT-4 revealed its ability to match junior translators but lag behind experienced professionals, particularly in nuanced contexts. Florian highlights the public’s heightened perception of the risks of AI, such as OpenAI’s Whisper, in critical sectors such as healthcare, where transcription errors and hallucinations can have severe implications.Esther delves into leadership transitions in the language industry, with notable appointments including Benjamin Faes, a tech veteran with experience at Google and AOL, as RWS’ new CEO.Sorenson appointed Pajet Alves as CEO, while BLEND welcomed Yoav Ziv to lead after significant growth and acquisitions. Anna Albinsson took the helm at Gridly, with plans to expand beyond its gaming localization focus into MedTech and EdTech.In M&A and funding, Esther covers Teleperformance’s acquisition of ZP Better Together for USD 490m, with plans to fold it into LanguageLine Solutions. Meanwhile, Writer.com raised USD 200m in Series C funding, to expand its generative AI capabilities.Florian discusses big tech developments, such as Microsoft’s Translator Pro app for speech and document translation, while Amazon teased its "any-to-any" AI capabilities during the AWS re:Invent conference, hinting at future innovations in multilingual processing.Florian unpacks Straker Translations’ financial results, which reflected industry trends of increased volumes but declining revenue, highlighting pricing pressures. Their new Verify.ai tool, designed to validate AI-generated translations, underscores the pivot toward technology.

Charles Campbell, President of tbo., returns to SlatorPod for round 2 to talk about his efforts to unite and professionalize the language services industry in Latin America and the Caribbean through the association Juntos.Founded just before the pandemic, Juntos aims to raise standards in translation, interpreting, and localization by fostering collaboration, mentoring, and quality benchmarking. Despite challenges posed by the vast geography and diverse cultural landscape, the organization has seen significant growth, hosting conferences in Rio de Janeiro and Lima, with the next planned for Mexico City in 2025.Campbell sees immense potential in Latin America, noting its rich linguistic diversity and a growing pool of passionate professionals entering the field. While many countries in the region lack the established quality norms and associations found in Europe or North America, Juntos is actively working to close this gap. He also highlights the affordability of hosting events in the region, coupled with its cultural richness, as factors drawing increased international participation.Campbell addresses the role of AI in the industry, recognizing its strengths in high-resource languages like Spanish and Portuguese. He stresses that while AI is a valuable tool, human expertise remains essential, particularly in nuanced and culturally specific translations.As Latin America and the Caribbean continue to gain visibility in the language industry, Campbell remains optimistic. Through Juntos, he encourages stakeholders to collaborate, innovate, and embrace the region’s unique opportunities.

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with Slator’s latest Translation as a Feature (TaaF) Report, which explores how AI translation is becoming an integral feature in enterprise technology.Florian talks about Reddit’s success with machine translation (MT). By localizing content into French, the social media platform quadrupled daily active users in France, demonstrating the high ROI of investing millions in AI-driven localization each quarter.In an M&A corner, Esther discusses Wolfestone’s acquisition of TauRho Transcribes, beefing up Wolfestone’s offerings in transcription and life sciences. She also covers TransPerfect’s fourth acquisition of 2024 with Plint selling its Netherlands-based media localization studio to the Super Agency.Esther highlights Panjaya.ai’s USD 9.5m funding for BodyTalk, which perfects multilingual AI translation by synchronizing lip movements and gestures. Meanwhile, Neuphonic, a UK-based voice AI startup focused on ultra-low latency speech technology, has raised GBP 3m in pre-seed funding.Florian reviews major AI launches: Translated’s Lara, a customizable large-scale AI-powered translation model, DeepL’s "DeepL Voice", offering real-time speech-to-text capabilities, and Unbabel’s Widn.AI, a platform offering advanced MT customization.