Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, giving a recap of SlatorCon London and exploring some use cases from the Slator Pro Guide: Language AI for Consumers.
Florian talks about Andrew Ng’s recent project on agentic machine translation, which involves using large language models (LLMs) to create a virtual language service provider (LSP).
The duo touch on Apple’s recent Worldwide Developer Conference, where Apple Watch is set to get a translation widget and also recently announced a new translation API.
Florian shares RWS’s half-year financial results, where despite declines in revenue, the company’s stock rose by 20%, likely due to investor perception of AI-enabled services and new product offerings like Evolve and HAI gaining traction.
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Esther talks about DeepL’s USD 300m funding round, which valued the company at USD 2bn, a testament to the growing interest in AI models. She also covers Unbabel’s launch of TowerLLM, which claims to outperform competitors like Google Translate and DeepL.
In Esther’s M&A corner, Keywords Studios eyes a GBP 2.2bn deal from Swedish private equity firm EQT, Melbourne LSP Ethnolink buys Sydney-based competitor Language Professionals, and ZOO Digital acquires Italian dubbing partner LogoSound.
Esther gives a nod to the positive financial performances of companies like ZOO Digital and AMN’s language services division, with more mixed results for Straker.