Pedro Luis Díez Orzas

Since Generative AI went public over a year and a half ago, we can now begin to discern between the true disruptive impact of this technology and the effects inflated by marketing hype. The widespread marketing campaigns associated with Generative AI have raised expectations considerably, leading many decision-makers to pursue AI-driven solutions indiscriminately to optimize processes, reduce costs, and save time. This often occurs without specifying whether the AI in question is generative or another type, resulting in potential misapplications and unmet expectations.

In translation services, distinguishing between Generative AI and Neural Machine Translation (NMT) AI is essential for strategic differentiation. NMT AI, specifically designed for translation tasks, often outperforms Generative AI in terms of accuracy and fluency, particularly for language pairs that do not include English. This strategic distinction is not merely academic but key for ensuring high-quality translations.

Human oversight remains vital not only for editing or post-editing AI-translated or AI-generated content but also for validating the accuracy and appropriateness of outputs. Keeping human translators and editors at the core brings context, cultural understanding, and nuance that AI currently lacks. This combined approach can significantly enhance translation quality and reliability.

The disruptive potential of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI extends beyond translation and localization into areas such as content creation, text adaptation, quality assurance, and the development of interactive bots. These applications demonstrate AI’s versatility and its ability to augment human creativity and efficiency.

As Generative AI becomes more prevalent, it raises important ethical and legal questions. Recent legislation and ethical guidelines emphasize the need for transparency, accountability, and respect for intellectual property. Internet search engines may also penalize AI-generated content, affecting its visibility and reach. This underscores the importance of integrating ethical considerations and compliance into AI deployment strategies.

Looking to the future, the deployment of Generative AI holds incredible potential, but it must be approached with a balanced perspective. By distinguishing between different types of AI and maintaining human oversight, we can leverage AI’s capabilities effectively and ethically. Staying informed about technological advancements, legislative changes, and ethical considerations will be crucial in harnessing AI’s full potential while mitigating its risks.

If we distinguish between internal forces (organizational, labor, profitability, ownership, and capital...) and external forces (the market, customers, suppliers, socio-economic and sustainability context, legislation, and the possible fragmentation of globalization and the internet) that will influence the evolution of LSPs in 2023 and beyond, we realize that there are 3 common aspects that are likely to shape the future of our industry:

From the technology point of view:
- Consolidation of digital transformation
- Process automation
- QA
- Machine Translation
- Other applications of new technologies and Artificial Intelligence

From the human/team viewpoint:
- Attraction and development of talent
- Improvements in the organization of work
- Improvement and viability of outsourcing (both for LSPs and for external collaborators themselves)
- Training in transformation processes

From the business perspective:
- Services and solutions that combine technology and the human factor in the best possible way
- Offer of value-added services
- Complementation of services and solutions with other related ones (data, digital marketing, multilingual solutions applied to different business processes, etc.)
- Sustainability
- Compliance

The form that each LSP will finally take will depend on its evolution in recent years and on the decisions taken now and in the near future.

In 2020, many of us anticipated that there would be changes and a need to reinvent ourselves in our industry once the pandemic was over. Now the future is here, and apart from the rapid pace of digital transformation, another – probably even more significant – change was already in the making long before.

Generative Artificial Intelligence, or “GenAI” is undeniably a new paradigm shift. In our industry, it marks the third shift in less than 30 years, following the advent of the Internet and Neural Machine Translation. These transformative changes not only impact business operations but also for society at large, with profound implications for legal and privacy issues, as well as socioeconomic and cultural aspects.

When such changes occur, they often give rise to alarm, but they also undoubtedly present opportunities. The fear that GenAI could replace humans in creative and intellectual tasks, such as generating texts, images, music or translation, is reminiscent of concerns raised by neural machine translation or specific artificial intelligence. But does this mean that human professional work will be excluded from this evolution? It appears not.

Human intervention ensures accountability. The creation and translation of texts must be approached with responsibility. And for us to assume that responsibility, GenAI, just like NMT, needs to be supervised and validated by human intervention.

Translation will remain indispensable. While GenAI can be employed with human intervention to produce high-quality, multilingual content that caters to diverse language variants and cultures, the act of translating from a source language remains more viable for ensuring communication control, as well as being more cost-effective and efficient.

Moreover, the workload will continue to grow, with increasingly diverse needs. According to reports from just a few years ago, less than 10% of global textual and audiovisual content was translated or localized. One of the effects brought about by NMT, that will be replicated by GenAI, is that this percentage, which is already on the rise, will escalate significantly, unstoppably.

So, it is highly probable that the market for global content creation, translation and localization will undergo a division into new categories of needs. This will necessitate the provision of services such as fully automated global content, responsibly automated services with human intervention, and purely human services that offer exceptional quality and creativity.

So, it’s not about getting worried, it’s about getting busy and taking action.

We are in the midst of a significant paradigm shift, initially signaled by NMT and now solidified in 2023 with GenAI. Paradigm shifts bring uncertainty about the future, impacting not only business operations but also society at large, including legal, privacy, socioeconomic, and cultural aspects.

While changes often raise concerns, they also present opportunities. The fear that GenAI might replace humans in creative tasks echoes past concerns about neural machine translation. But this evolution does not imply eliminating human work.

Human intervention remains crucial for accountability in content creation and translation. GenAI, like NMT, requires supervision and validation through human intervention. This aspect significantly influences client preferences when configuring services.

GenAI, with human intervention, can produce high-quality, multilingual content, but translating from a source language remains more viable for communication control, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency.

The workload will grow with diverse needs, likely dividing the market into categories such as fully automated global content, responsibly automated services with human intervention, and purely human services for exceptional quality and creativity.

Post-validation by human professionals is indispensable for translations and generated content, ensuring accuracy and maintaining expressive variability in human language.

While AI offers benefits, a balance between automation and human expertise is essential for linguistic and cultural accuracy in the translation and localization sector.

The data from various reports points to a challenging outlook for the sector in 2025, following the difficulties encountered in 2023 and 2024. The negative growth seen in recent years has largely been driven by the decline of traditional translation and localization services, primarily due to the disruptive impact of Generative AI. This trend has continued to gain momentum as 2025 gets underway and is expected to persist in the coming years.

Nevertheless, 2024 witnessed significant shifts compared to 2023, which can be grouped into three major trends:
A more balanced view of AI. The initial excessive enthusiasm surrounding AI has evolved into a more nuanced perspective. There is now a broader recognition of the need to use this technology responsibly, with an understanding of its limitations (often referred to as “the wall” in reference to current technological barriers). Generative AI is increasingly being viewed not as a one-size-fits-all solution, but as a tool to for creating customized solutions.
A growing demand for human oversight. Clients’ initial belief that Generative AI could function without human supervision is gradually shifting. We are seeing an increasing demand for professional services not only to train or fine-tune large language models (LLMs), but also to audit, edit, or validate Generative AI output. In fields like translation and content creation—especially in multilingual communications—it has become clear that Generative AI, on its own, is not sufficient.
Advancements in international regulation. Legislation, particularly in Europe, is steering the conversation toward a more responsible use of AI. In some countries, regulations now require labeling content that is fully or partially AI-generated.

In this evolving context, the sector is already introducing new services, solutions, and technologies that integrate Generative AI. What once seemed like an uncertain landscape just a year ago is beginning to solidify with greater clarity. After the “tsunami” brought on by the rise of Generative AI over two years ago, the sector is finding its way toward a more balanced approach, navigating the intersection of innovation and responsibility.

This year, Linguaserve celebrates 25 years of supporting clients in their international communication. Throughout this time, we have witnessed major paradigm shifts that have fundamentally reshaped how translation, localization, and multilingual content management are approached. Today, we stand at another pivotal moment: The rise of Generative AI is redefining the possibilities of content creation and adaptation at scale.
We are actively deploying hybrid methodologies that integrate MT, AI, QA, WF, and human expertise. This convergence impacts not only production processes but also how we design services, define success metrics, and maintain consistency.
Transforming services into continuously evolving solutions, we are in the process of adapting our organization from every angle, turning uncertainty into concrete roadmaps and actionable plans that guide our next steps.
While the future of AI remains dynamic, one thing is clear: organizations that successfully combine technological innovation, rigorous quality standards, and human judgment will define the next era of our industry. At Linguaserve, this vision drives us to create value, shape best practices, and lead the ongoing evolution of international communication, even if it sometimes means taking a deliberate step back to gain the momentum needed for the next leap forward.

After more than a year of pandemic, the world has changed, and neither the world nor us will ever be the same.
Unlike previous crises, this one has affected every aspect of our lives, both professional and personal; public and private and we still do not know how long it is going to last. We ultimately closed out 2020 with significant growth, despite experiencing a drop, particularly in the second quarter, thanks to our extensive experience in digital content and data localization.
We also grew as both a personal and professional team, facing an unprecedented situation in our lives with our clients and providers, and we came out stronger. In 2021, and in the coming years, we must undergo a significant transformation to adapt to current and future realities, which may offer new opportunities for business and growth. We believe that the values that have enabled us to come this far will be an asset, and together with what we have learned during the pandemic, we are optimistic about facing the new challenges ahead. Technology and innovation are more important now than ever. Transparency, sustainability, and corporate responsibility are no longer optional, but obligations as a business and as individuals. Client focus and improving and making changes to services, solutions, and methodologies are essential to remaining aligned with our clients in their own transformations. Teamwork, education, professional growth, and the search for excellence, both as employees and collaborators, are the keystones of any transformation. It is no longer about managing a crisis, but rather driving a new stage that we will face with enthusiasm.

Fastest Growing LSPs Edition

As has been said in the past, not everything after the pandemic would be the same as before, and some changes in the sector, caused or accelerated by the pandemic, would be here to stay. The introduction of teleworking and remote meetings, remote interpretation, the normalization of the use of machine translation and an increase in other tasks such as post-editing–but also transcreation as a counterpoint–are some examples.

The sector, therefore, continues to change and to evolve, and now new factors must be considered. For example, the continuous adjustment of prices has combined with the rise of inflation, which seems to be transferred above all to costs and not so easily to prices. That means that, in some cases, it is necessary to work with even tighter margins, reducing the capacity for investment, which is so necessary for digital transformation and the implementation of certain growth or evolution plans, especially for smaller companies.

Other factors, such as war and geopolitical tensions, the energy crisis and the already announced next global recession create new areas of uncertainty. So, it is still a time to make cautious decisions and take advantage of the business opportunities that will undoubtedly arise in this context.