As we reflect on 2023, we do so with tremendous gratitude. Over the last year, TransPerfect continued its track record of uninterrupted growth, and we had the humbling opportunity to apply our resources and technologies in many ways to support our clients and communities.

Nothing was more prevalent in our 2023 offering than the application of generative AI. As our businesses continue to evolve around this exciting innovation, we wanted to highlight the top three business areas where GenAI is changing the localization game.

Translation

Generative AI has revolutionized multilingual content by enabling faster, more fluent, and cost-effective solutions. However, it’s important to note that machine translation is a mature technology that started in the ‘50s with rule-based systems, and current products in the market pioneered the use of transformers, the architecture behind large language models (LLMs).

TransPerfect’s solution, already based on deep learning, will enable the combination of the best-trained machine translation models with LLMs to adapt sentences for better understandability. In our models, we use translation memories, glossaries, and other linguistic assets to tailor machine translation outputs to the client’s style, terminology, and tone of voice. For many languages, the output quality can be on par with human translation, but we would still recommend the human touch to guarantee an error-free text.

Additionally, in some verticals where the output doesn’t need to be an exact translation of the source, pioneers are piloting multilingual content creation thanks to the effective use of LLMs and other solutions that enable SEO-optimized content.

While we have integrated OpenAI models into translation workflows, we’ve found that performance is lower when compared to a well-trained, custom MT engine. We are also integrating LLM-based actions into our tools to improve outputs—upgrading machine translations or turning a fuzzy match into a better translation. For AI content pre-editing, we’ve also started using LLMs for quality improvements, quality estimation of machine or human translation, and automated post-editing of MT outputs.

Digital Marketing

Beyond content creation and optimization for a wider reach, AI-powered tools are helping marketers accelerate their digital marketing campaign pipelines and reduce the effort needed to get campaigns off the ground.

At TransPerfect, we have experience across a variety of scenarios, like optimizing multilingual ad copy with generative AI and traditional digital marketing tools. What was previously done in days now takes minutes, enabling faster time-to-market as well as continuous A/B testing to improve campaigns in real time. By streamlining keyword research, we can reduce workloads for digital strategists so they can spend their time on more valuable activities. We also work with images to generate visuals for online content as well as descriptions of the images for efficient and cost-effective accessibility and SEO alt-text. For campaigns that involve video, synthetic voices can be used to create a “brand voice” that is consistent across markets and platforms.

Generative AI and automation enable businesses to efficiently engage customers with relevant, high-quality content, maximize their online visibility, and create more inclusive and accessible shopping experiences, ultimately driving sales and brand loyalty.

Besides text projects for meta titles and descriptions, product or destination content, and many others, one of the most promising areas is visuals. On one side, we’re using AI to describe images—and applying those descriptions not only to alt-text but also to train AI-generated text. On the other side, we’re leveraging image AI to significantly reduce costs for creating website images. We can modify backgrounds, place products in different scenes, extend images, or even create images that do not exist. The next frontier: multimodal models for text, images, speech, and videos. 

Customer Support

By providing predictive responses and accelerating query resolution, AI-powered customer support tools can increase agent capacity by up to 50%. Chatbots and virtual assistants leverage massive datasets (FAQs, knowledge bases, product information, previous tickets, etc.) to anticipate and provide accurate solutions to customer inquiries in real time. Thanks to the multilingual nature of AI technology, the customer support tools can do this in multiple languages and therefore, empower monolingual customer service teams to respond to queries no matter what language they speak. This not only speeds up response times but also allows human agents to focus on more complex issues that a chatbot wouldn’t be able to solve. By enabling customer support teams to handle a significantly larger volume of interactions, overall efficiency and customer satisfaction are improved, leading to increased brand loyalty. Finally, due to the multilingual aspect of AI-powered customer support, you may no longer need representatives in all markets where you sell. Something TransPerfect is working on long-term is integrating speech-to-speech translation in call centers, which will improve efficiencies and enhance customer satisfaction.

In summary, generative AI is reshaping the localization landscape. From streamlined translation to enhanced digital marketing and efficient customer support, this technology is revolutionizing operations. Businesses adopting generative AI are empowered to reach global markets, adapt quickly, and provide more personalized experiences. It's no longer an option but a necessity for those seeking success in such a competitive industry.

Need help deploying GenAI at your company? You know where to find us!