The language industry will remember 2024 as bringing an interesting mix of rapid-fire innovations and developments, with some clear trends emerging on the technology side, including translation as a feature (TaaF), multimodal AI adoption, retrieval augmented generation (RAG) applications, and large language model (LLM) customization.
The balance between human expertise and AI automation continued to feature prominently in discussions among industry experts, while companies of all sizes had their own takes. Reactions from readers, per weekly Slator polls, give a glimpse of sentiments and priorities across the industry.
1. Should Language Service Providers Rethink Their Offerings?
Despite the language service industry’s historical resilience, 2024 began with news of a few bankruptcies. The shift was evidence that not even a healthy amount of funding or the latest in AI technology can guarantee permanence, with Germany’s AI startup Lengoo filing for bankruptcy in March 2024, preceded by the Dutch WCS Group in December 2023 (later on bought by Powerling).
The most voted on Slator Weekly poll revealed that over half (52.1%) of respondents believed that more language services provider (LSP) bankruptcies were inevitable in 2024. Just under a third (31.1%) thought more bankruptcies would probably follow, and a smaller group (13.4%) said it was possible. The smallest percentage (3.4%) of respondents thought future bankruptcies were unlikely.
How Popular is Machine Translation Post-Editing?
As machine translation (MT) expands into creative domains such as literature and marketing, machine translation post-editing (MTPE) has surpassed the task of editing human translations in terms of volume. This trend is reflected in the Société française des traducteurs (SFT)’s July 2024 statement, soon after retracted, which highlighted that 70% of its members perceive post-editing as a threat due to its tedious nature and poor remuneration.
This sentiment resonated with July 2024 poll responders, with 61.2% agreeing that post-editing is tedious and mind-numbing; 23.5% described it as difficult “sometimes,” and 10.2% attributed their dislike of MTPE to inadequate tools, while only 5.1% expressed enjoyment in the process.
3. Would Shakespeare Approve of the Other Bard’s Translations?
While William Shakespeare’s works were not translated during his lifetime, Google Bard, now known as Gemini, can translate his complete works into dozens of languages in mere minutes. Despite research favoring human literary translation not two years before, advancements in LLMs by January 2024 suggested growing competency in diverse translation styles.
AI translation’s encroachment into the creative fields is evident in social media discussions and open decisions from publishers about its use. However, readers were divided in their predictions regarding a potential widespread adoption of AI translation in literary works within 2-3 years. To the question of whether MT use will become widespread in literary translation in 2-3 years, almost one-third (31.9%) deemed it unlikely. About a fifth (20.2%) disagreed, while the rest were split between probable (17.0%), maybe (16.0%), and definite (14.9%).
4. Is Translation Quality Evaluation a Solved Problem?
Despite advancements in MT and the availability of automated metrics, such as BLEU and COMET, the need for human evaluation of translation quality remains. The new ISO 5060 Standard addresses this by providing guidelines for human evaluation of translation output, regardless of its source.
The standard encompasses seven quality categories, including terminology and style, and assigns severity levels to errors. While ISO 5060 aims to harmonize evaluation approaches, a February 2024 poll revealed that 72.7% of respondents believe translation quality evaluation requires further research, while 20.5% believe it depends on the language and text type. Only 6.8% consider it a solved problem.
5. Has ChatGPT Affected Google Search Use?
OpenAI launched the prototype of SearchGPT in July 2024, offering a direct AI-powered “answer experience” instead of traditional search results. However, there are concerns about the accuracy of these answers and potential self-referencing, due to AI-generated content in search results.
Has this new release changed how Slator readers search? According to our poll, nearly two-thirds of respondents (65.7%) primarily use the Google search engine. Less than a quarter (22.9%) of readers reported using Google Search a bit, and ChatGPT more often. The rest (11.4%) said they mostly use ChatGPT for questions.
Slator Translation as a Feature (TaaF) Report
The Slator Translation as a Feature (TaaF) Report is a vital and concise guide on how AI translation is becoming an integral feature in enterprise technology.
6. Has AI (LLMs, etc.) changed your day-to-day work in the past 24 months?
Spence Green, CEO of Lilt, highlighted the growing importance of AI in localization in SlatorPod episode #221, emphasizing the ability of technologies like custom LLMs, RAG, and AI orchestration to automate tasks, customize content, process massive volumes of data, and boost return on investment (ROI).
As companies such as Reddit materially show their faith in AI localization, the language industry at large faces challenges in adoption and adaptation. A Slator poll found that over a third of localization professionals (37.5%) have not yet integrated AI into their daily workflows, while nearly a quarter (23.6%) have gone all-in. Two equal cohorts (19.4% each) use AI language tech “somewhat” or “a little,” respectively.
7. Will AI increase or decrease demand for language learning in the long term?
OpenAI‘s unveiling of the multimodal GPT-4o model, with a live speech-to-speech translation (S2ST) demo using Italian and English, created a storm of reactions on X announcing the demise of translators and language learning as we know it. The social media jitters turned to quakes, causing some investors to dump shares of the language learning platform Duolingo.
Readers’ responses to the question of whether AI would increase or decrease demand for language learning in the long term were rather split, with more than one-third (36.9%) predicting that demand will increase and another (35.4%) that it will decrease. A little over a quarter (27.7%) believe demand will stay the same.
8. Which role prepares you best for leading an LSP?
The world’s largest language services provider (LSP), TransPerfect, has grown continuously on the basis of acquisitions and diverse offerings, including technology. But the real engine in the company is, of course, people such as Jin Lee, appointed as co-CEO in January 2024.
At that time, Lee was already a 20-year veteran of the company, starting his career as a project manager and serving as Senior VP for Global Production before his co-CEO appointment. In this context, we asked readers which roles prepare them best for leading an LSP, and the largest cohort (46.0%) believes project management is the key role. Other readers picked sales and language experts (14.3% each), and finance/admin and language ops (11.1% each).
9. Are you seeing a summer slowdown in business?
There was no typical business slowdown for the language industry in the summer of 2024 — at least in the northern hemisphere. July alone saw significant investment activity, ranging from early-stage funding to major acquisitions.
Capital kept pouring into some sectors, including AI dubbing and captioning, plus language tech. Yet, when we asked readers if they were seeing a summer slowdown, 40.3% said they were definitely experiencing a cooling period. For the rest, the summer was either fairly stable (33.9%) or busier than ever (25.8%).
10. How has your (business) year been so far?
News of bankruptcies shook the language industry at the beginning of 2024, and may even have shocked some Slator readers into action to avoid a similar fate. The Language Service Provider Index (LSPI) showed indications of stability for some companies and actual growth for the Super Agencies.
Although the LSPI represents just a slice of the industry (about 300 companies volunteer their data for it), the February 2024 release seemed to foreshadow the mixed bag LSPs saw throughout 2024. Some companies were driven out of business, though an acceleration of M&A was also apparent. Readers self-reported that, as of February 2024, business had so far been great (27.6%) or good (25.9%), flat (20.7%), not great (15.5%), or bad (10.3%).
