Everything changes… where next for localization?

As Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher once said, “Change is the only constant in life”, and that remains as true today as when he first made this point 2,500 years ago.

 

It's something those of us who’ve worked in the localization industry for many years will immediately recognize. Although the translation work itself remains strikingly familiar, the way the work gets done, and the tools now available to help translators do it, has changed beyond all recognition over the last fifty years.

 

The use of translation memory, machine translation, and translation management tools to name but a few have transformed the localization industry and made it much more efficient. As a result of these advances, companies can now translate much more content than they ever could before. And some of it, such as user reviews or knowledgebase articles, can be translated without any human involvement at all.

 

Despite these capabilities, this still isn’t enough to cope with the ever-expanding glut of content out there. The spectacular growth in demand from organizations for content in multiple languages, in multiple formats, to reach customers across multiple channels, is fast outstripping the localization industry’s capacity to meet that demand in a timely or cost-effective manner. In fact, every time our industry has created new features to increase efficiency, the volume of content needing translation has simply eclipsed those efficiencies.

 

And the problem is only going to get worse.

 

With generative AI (GenAI) tools becoming mainstream in the last year, many companies are now experimenting with low cost or even free LLMs to generate even more content. When swathes of content can be created with the simplest of prompts, it won’t be long before a tidal wave of content from companies hits a localization industry that is already struggling to keep up with demand.

 

However, all is not lost. Although there’s danger in GenAI swamping us with content, the same technology offers us an opportunity to make revolutionary changes to the way we do things in the localization industry.

 

Across the board, companies are having to adapt to this rapidly changing world at an astonishing pace and the headlong rush to adopt AI is based in part on the opportunities it presents us with – the power to radically change existing processes and production and make them massively more efficient.

 

If a competitor can almost overnight become 20 to 30% more efficient then they suddenly have a serious advantage over you. It’s no wonder the fear of missing out (FOMO) and falling behind is palpable and driving so much frenetic activity around AI. 

 

Figuring out where best to use these transformative tools isn’t easy and mistakes will inevitably be made. But that is true of virtually every invention. It takes time to work out where it will add the most value. What is certain is that over the next few years companies will do exactly that – and those who fail to engage with AI, or fail to embed it into their processes, or incorporate it across their organization, will struggle to compete and stay in business.

 

So where does this leave those of us in the localization industry? What does the future hold for localization professionals and buyers of translation services?

 

It’s clear that we must embrace the latest advances in technology – as we have always done. Our very own Trados Studio, the world’s most popular CAT tool, is turning 40 later this year and it’s still delivering new capabilities with every release. Because without technology, we have no hope of coping with the avalanche of content headed our way.

 

But as with the wider business, it’s finding where GenAI can help improve localization processes or make the actual translation work more efficient. The holy grail for companies is being able to translate any content, in any language, quickly and cost-effectively, without sacrificing quality. If we can develop AI tools and LLMs that help us do that, the future for our industry is very bright indeed.

 

And the improvements don’t necessarily have to be earth shatteringly large – even quite small improvements can have a significant impact over time, or when done at scale. Translation memories have already transformed the consistency and speed of translations – how much more could LLMs uniquely tuned to the specific language and terminology of an individual organization achieve?

 

Scale may well be a critical factor. If improvements can be made more strategically, across an entire organization, rather than ad hoc or just at a departmental or business unit level, then the rewards will far outweigh the risks involved in developing and deploying AI tools.

 

There’s no reason to believe that the localization industry won’t be able to innovate and use the power of technology to be even more efficient – we have after all risen to every challenge so far. Not only will such developments enable the industry to meet the glut of content head on, it may well open up new opportunities for localization teams to become more central to their organizations’ global growth ambitions – unlocking new markets, increasing market share, and gaining a competitive advantage over rivals – themes we’ll explore in our next blog of this series.

 

Change is going to happen. It always does. And it will transform the localization industry in the years ahead. And as always, those who acknowledge change, adapt to it, and embrace it, will be the ones who realize the most benefit from it.