Findings from the 2025 Slator Language Services Provider Index (LSPI) reveal a stark divergence in fortunes within the language industry: While text translation providers grappled with a challenging 2024, those specializing in interpreting services experienced growth. 

Companies like AMN Language Services, LanguageLine, Cyracom, GLOBO, and Equiti reported significant revenue growth, between 11% and 30%. They were far surpassed by Propio, which achieved “Super Agency” status through a staggering 164% growth, fueled by strategic acquisitions.

The boom in spoken language services extended beyond the US, with European providers like GlobalTalk, Hero Tolk, and Dals also reporting substantial gains between 28% and 60%. However, the sector faces potential headwinds, including the effects of policy changes in the US for government language access programs.

The rapid advancement of AI speech translation technologies, aka AI interpreting, also factors in the traditionally human-centric interpreting market: besides established solutions, like KUDO, numerous startups and research groups are actively developing such solutions and pocketing generous funds from private investors.

We asked readers what they think is the level of maturity of this disruptive and equally promising technology. Almost half of respondents (48.4%) believe that AI interpreting works for niche scenarios. More than a third (32.3%) believe that it is still highly experimental. The rest (19.3%) see it as mature and operational.

A High-Level Language Mandate

For a few decades, political figures in the US had tried to make English the only official language in the country. They were mostly members of Congress pushing a legislative proposal to their peers that never got enough traction.

That changed on March 1, 2025, when President Trump issued an Executive Order (EO) making English the only official language in the United States and revoking EO 13166. The latter had served since 2000 as key guidance for government language access programs for Limited English Proficiency” (LEP) populations.

The English-only EO states that it is in the US federal government’s best interest to designate “only one official language … [that] will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society.”

According to US Census figures there are over 400 languages spoken at home in the country, with an estimated 71 million people speaking primarily a language other than English. Neighboring Canada is an example of equally diverse linguistic representation in its people with two official languages. India, Spain, and Switzerland are other examples of countries with more than one designated official language.

We asked readers to give their opinion as to whether a country should have one or more official languages by law, and most (46.2%) remain in the gray zone — it depends. For a little over a third (33.8%) it is a given, and the smallest cohort (20.0%) see just the opposite: definitely not. Note: Language US Census figures are no longer available on the organization’s website, but Slator collected the public data in 2024.

Winning Big on EU Contracts

During the first quarter of 2025, Slator reported on two European Union translation contract awards which, combined, represent close to USD 149m in allocations. The first one is an open tender with no specific assigned budget and a maximum total value of USD ~123m.

Large as that sum might be, this is a contract in which 40 companies get to partake. However, Acolad stands out for getting the most contract lots within it: eight in total. The contract requires translation of single and multiple source language documents in the official EU languages and can last up to five years.

Acolad followed this win with another significant award, a set of translation contracts identified in the EU tender system as having a value of EUR 25m (USD 26m). In these contracts, Acolad is the main provider of translation services for technical documentation between English and 23 EU languages. Both awards follow other multi-year EU tenders secured by Acolad in the previous 13 months, including TRAD23.

Even for well-established language services providers (LSP) like Acolad, winning a large public sector award is a good way to hedge operational capital. The downside? The long and complicated RFP process is usually followed by an equally complicated fulfillment process.

We asked readers if they would rather work with private or public sector clients given the choice, and the vast majority (70.5%) prefer to work with the private sector. The rest (29.5%) prefer public-sector work.

Who Is This “Claude” You Speak Of?

Anthropic, the AI lab behind the large language models (LLMs) called “Claude,” published the results of a study titled “Which Economic Tasks are Performed with AI?” in February 2025 that piqued Slator’s analysts’ curiosity for one rather interesting finding.

As discussed during SlatorPod’s episode #240, the study revealed that a disproportionate amount of validation — where users ask AI to check the logic and accuracy of their work — was concentrated within translation tasks. Out of the 4 million conversations analyzed in the study, roughly 100,000 involved users asking Claude to verify translations.

While the whole validation category represented only 2.8% of the data, its concentration in translation tasks is intriguing. Among other things, it could indicate a trend toward increasing reliance on AI’s validation capabilities in a workplace context by those concerned with translation quality.

We asked readers if they had ever used Claude for translation, and over half (51.4%) do not even know Claude! Over a third (34.3%) have not used the LLM for translation, and the rest of the respondents (14.3%) said they have indeed used it.