For decades, the narrative around innovation in translation has centered on speed and accuracy. Neural networks. Adaptive MT. Better BLEU scores. But as 2025 unfolds, it’s clear we’re entering a new phase of transformation—one that goes beyond machine translation and touches on culture, society, buyer behavior, and the future of services themselves.
Translation is no longer just a linguistic process; it’s a strategic, cultural, and technological ecosystem, shaping how organizations connect with the world.
Here’s what’s really changing—and why it matters.
Smarter AI, wiser humans: Collaborative intelligence in practice
Machine Translation (MT) has taken giant leaps in recent years. The launch of Lara, Translated’s document-aware AI in 2024, marked a new milestone: AI that understands context, explains its choices, and asks for clarifications. Rather than treating translation as isolated sentences, Lara evaluates the structure, tone, and intent of full documents—helping human professionals produce higher-quality work, faster.
But the breakthrough isn’t just technological—it’s relational.
“Lara represents a new AI paradigm—one built not to replace translators, but to work with them. It learns from human input, respects context, and elevates cultural nuance.” — Marco Trombetti, CEO, Translated
This shift aligns with a wider cultural and economic trend: human-AI collaboration is no longer experimental—it’s operational. Localization platforms like TranslationOS make real-time adaptation part of everyday workflows, enabling translation professionals to spend less time editing and more time curating meaning.
From localized content to localized experiences
The focus of localization is shifting from static text to dynamic, culturally resonant experiences. Leading organizations aren’t just translating documents—they’re localizing products, interactions, media, and conversations across every touchpoint.
This means expanding services beyond traditional translation into areas like:
- AI dubbing and expressive voice synthesis (check Matedub)
- Real-time multilingual subtitling (check Matesub)
- Culturally adaptive UX localization (ensuring design matches local expectations)
- Conversational AI alignment, ensuring that chatbots and virtual assistants reflect cultural norms and user etiquette
The shift is driven by users who expect authenticity and fluency, not just translated words. Multilingual content must feel like it was created locally, not converted globally.
Culture as a cornerstone: The new expectations around representation and inclusion
Cultural relevance is now central to content quality. Buyers expect their global content to reflect inclusive language, gender neutrality, and regional variants—not as afterthoughts, but as core brand values.
This has led to:
- Terminology guidelines aligned with DEI principles
- Inclusive language support in both human workflows and AI systems
- Greater focus on underrepresented languages and dialects
- Bias-aware data curation in MT training
More than ever, organizations are recognizing that language is not neutral. It shapes perception, trust, and accessibility. Translators and AI alike must now account for societal norms, cultural nuance, and political sensitivity.
At Translated, we’re embedding these principles into everything from MT training data to customer onboarding. And our research lab, Imminent, continues to explore how language reflects evolving social dynamics—and how translation can support positive change.
The new buyer personas: Strategy, speed, and scalability
A decade ago, translation buyers were primarily localization managers and language leads. Today, the buyer landscape has diversified significantly:
- CMOs and brand leaders demanding faster go-to-market localization
- Product teams building multilingual UX by design
- Legal and compliance departments managing cross-border regulatory content
- Support teams seeking multilingual automation at scale
These personas have new expectations:
- Real-time delivery across languages
- Content-aware AI that adapts to brand tone
- Platform integration across CMS, product, and marketing stacks
- Cost models that scale predictably with usage
The result? A shift from static project-based translation to continuous, AI-enabled localization workflows—backed by SLAs, data governance, and measurable KPIs.
Services are evolving—From transactional to strategic
The services landscape is also transforming. Clients are no longer just buying words—they’re looking for strategic partners who can:
- Build custom AI translation pipelines
- Co-design multilingual UX flows
- Implement automated quality evaluation frameworks
- Enable centralized governance for decentralized content teams
Companies like Airbnb, SpaceX, and Glovo have worked with Translated to deploy hybrid models—where our AI-powered tools handle scale, and our 500,000+ vetted native-speaking professionals ensure quality, nuance, and compliance.
Research and regulation: Shaping the future responsibly
Finally, the translation industry is at the center of larger conversations around:
- AI transparency and explainability
- Cross-border content regulation
- Data privacy in multilingual environments
- AI for social good, including support for endangered languages
With initiatives like DVPS (Diversibus Viis Plurima Solvo), Translated is helping lead European efforts to advance multimodal, ethical AI. This €29M project explores foundational models that combine language, vision, and sensor data—paving the way for more human-aware, real-world AI systems.
Final thought: Translation is the infrastructure of global thinking
As a matter of fact, translation is more than a service—it’s a strategic infrastructure for global interaction. It enables:
- Brands to be understood without distortion
- Products to be used without friction
- Ideas to travel across borders
- Cultures to connect without losing their voice
At Translated, we’re proud to be shaping this future—one where technology serves meaning, and where translation is not just faster, but smarter, fairer, and more culturally fluent.