How AI Translation Balances Quality, Speed, and Scale

In a globalized world, language barriers remain one of the most significant obstacles to accessing information, commerce, and cultural exchange. The translation industry, a massive $40 billion market, has long been tasked with bridging these divides. Yet, traditional methods often fall short, offering sluggish turnaround times, high costs, and inconsistent quality. Enter AI-powered translation technologies, which promise to transform the landscape by balancing quality, speed, and scale.

In a recent discussion, Brian Murphy, the CEO of Smartling, an AI-driven translation company, shed light on how his team is tackling the challenges of evolving this industry. With insights into AI’s potential for disruption, Smartling’s innovative approach, and the broader implications for businesses and consumers, this conversation is an eye-opener for anyone navigating multilingual content or looking to make global communication more effective.

The Translation Industry: A Hidden Giant

Surprisingly, the translation industry is twice the size of the much-discussed AI-driven code generation market, which is projected to grow to $27 billion by 2027. Why does translation command such a significant economic footprint? The answer lies in the simple fact that 87% of people will not buy from a website that isn’t in their language. Whether for e-commerce, B2B marketing, or communication, localization is critical for driving conversions, boosting engagement, and building trust with international audiences.

However, the industry has traditionally relied on manual processes - translators working word-by-word, using spreadsheets, and managing back-and-forth revisions - a time-consuming and expensive system. At rates averaging $0.20 per word, companies often ration their translated content, limiting their global digital footprint and hampering growth in international markets.

AI’s Role in Transformation

AI technologies, particularly advancements in neural machine translation and large language models, are dismantling traditional barriers in the translation space. Murphy explains that AI doesn’t just enable faster and cheaper translations; it is now approaching human-level quality. Here’s how:

AI-Assisted Human Translation: By integrating productivity tools powered by AI, human translators have significantly enhanced their efficiency. A task that once capped at 2,000 words per day can now reach 8,000–10,000 words, scaling up productivity without sacrificing accuracy.
AI-Only Translation: Fully automated translation services now deliver quality scores nearly on par with human translation. Using a metric called MQM (Multidimensional Quality Metrics), Murphy notes that human translation typically scores around 98 out of 100, while AI translations are scoring 96 to 97 - remarkable progress that was unthinkable just a few years ago.
Customization and Context Awareness: AI-driven solutions like Smartling can tailor translations to match a company’s tone, style guide, terminology, and localized nuances, ensuring brand consistency and cultural relevance at a fraction of the cost.

Beyond Translation: SEO and Global Reach

Translation isn’t just about converting words - it’s also a major driver of SEO and digital engagement. Murphy explains how companies can expand their international digital footprint by localizing their content. Larger, localized websites rank higher on search engines, attract more engagement, and convert visitors into customers more effectively. For global businesses, this is a game-changer.

Take the example of a U.S.-based retailer launching in Germany. If the German site features only a small subset of products with limited translated content, it will rank poorly on Google and fail to gain traction. By leveraging AI to rapidly translate and localize an entire catalog, companies can build robust, engaging websites in multiple languages, fostering growth in key markets.

Building an AI-Driven Strategy

Murphy’s leadership at Smartling highlights how businesses can act decisively to harness AI’s potential. When OpenAI’s GPT technology became public, Smartling’s leadership team immediately recognized its transformative potential. They saw an opportunity to not only improve translation quality but also solve long-standing linguistic challenges.

Here’s how the team at Smartling successfully adapted:

Restructuring the Organization: The leadership team quickly overhauled their operating plan, creating a dedicated R&D division focused on integrating AI into their processes.
Clear Customer Outcomes: They set customer-focused goals around the key pillars of quality, speed, cost, and ease of translation. This "North Star" guided all AI-related efforts, ensuring innovations aligned with real-world needs.
Rapid Experimentation: To accelerate innovation, the team implemented a framework of time-boxed experiments. Each idea was tested against measurable confidence levels within strict deadlines. Promising solutions advanced to production, while lower-performing ideas were quickly discarded to focus on higher-impact opportunities.

Challenges in Adoption

While the technological advancements are exciting, the journey hasn’t been without hurdles:

Internal Resistance: Transitioning from traditional processes to AI-driven methodologies required significant cultural shifts within the organization. Murphy admits that his initial top-down approach created resistance, underscoring the importance of listening to teams and fostering collaborative buy-in.
Customer Skepticism: Many clients were hesitant to trust AI, doubting its ability to deliver high-quality results. Smartling addressed this through proof-of-concept projects, offering free trials to demonstrate the technology’s capabilities. As one example, Murphy humorously recalls betting a client $100 on the success of a project - a gamble that converted them into a multi-million-dollar customer.

The Future of Translation

Even as AI continues to refine its capabilities, Murphy believes that the future of translation will involve a mix of human and AI-driven solutions. High-stakes industries like pharmaceuticals or luxury branding may always require human oversight for sensitive or creative content. Meanwhile, AI will dominate areas where scale and speed are paramount, such as e-commerce product descriptions or user-generated content.

This hybrid approach ensures that businesses can optimize for both quality and efficiency, meeting diverse translation needs with the right balance of human expertise and AI innovation.

Key Takeaways

$40 Billion Industry: The translation market is massive and ripe for disruption, driven by businesses’ need for multilingual content to boost conversions and engagement.
AI-Driven Quality: Advances in neural machine translation are closing the gap between AI and human translation, with AI now achieving quality scores of 96–97 compared to human scores of 98.
Productivity Gains: AI tools have quadrupled the productivity of human translators, enabling them to complete up to 10,000 words per day.
SEO and Engagement: Localized content doesn’t just improve user experience; it also enhances SEO performance, helping businesses rank higher in international markets.
Decisive Action Matters: Smartling’s rapid pivot to AI adoption highlights the importance of acting quickly on transformative technologies.
Proof of Concept Builds Trust: Offering trial projects can overcome customer skepticism, demonstrating the tangible benefits of AI-powered solutions.
Hybrid Approach: The future of translation will combine AI-driven speed and scalability with human oversight for high-stakes or creative content.
Cultural Shift: Successful AI adoption requires strong leadership, clear goals, and collaboration to navigate internal and external challenges.

Conclusion

The translation industry stands at a pivotal moment. With AI bringing unprecedented speed, quality, and affordability, businesses can now break language barriers at scale, reaching global audiences like never before. Murphy and his team at Smartling offer a compelling roadmap for navigating this transformation, emphasizing customer-focused innovation, rapid experimentation, and a hybrid approach to translation.

For professionals, academics, and avid readers looking to access content previously locked behind language barriers - or for companies seeking to expand into global markets - the future is brighter than ever. The question is no longer if AI will transform translation but how you’ll leverage it to unlock new opportunities.

Source: "SPOTLIGHT: AI Isn’t Just Faster Translation, It’s a $40B Tug-of-War for Global Attention" - Pavilion, YouTube, Aug 14, 2025 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVA1koQv_2s