It would be simplistic to say that everyone, sooner or later, can benefit from an automatic translation service. Let just try to understand what the real benefits are for the business world.

The first is undeniable: it is fast! An automatic translation system can handle large volumes of text, from simple letters to technical manuals, and translate them almost instantly. The second advantage is its affordable: compared to the work of a professional translator, the cost is much lower.

Finally, the automatic translator responds to the growing need for communication between countries from all over the world, each with its own language and idioms, reducing if not breaking down language barriers. The European Parliament, for example, produces a data collection of over 1.37 billion words in 24 languages. But we must also think of the increasingly frequent use of remote digital communication tools such as video conferences, training platforms, and webinars.

Whether it is international government institutions, public administration or the business world, the automation of the transcription and translation phases supports the appropriate human review with the beforementioned advantages. 

An essential collaboration between machine and humans that brings benefits in terms of time and costs and takes on particular value in the content with a strong creative component, such as a copy or an advertising message, which may not be as effective if left only to the intelligence of the machine. The speed and accuracy of the most advanced translation engines is complemented by the post-editing work of expert linguists, who are also able to take style, tone, and nuances into due consideration.

Another important interaction, which relies exclusively on automation, is between Machine Translation and Speech-to-Text. The transcription and translation techniques are closely linked, so the result of a good automatic transcription feeds a Machine Translation process with an automatic and continuous flow; this, for example, is the process adopted by the European Parliament for the transcription and translation in real time of the plenary sessions in 24 languages.

A value of automatic systems such as Machine Translation and Speech-to-Text, increased with the digital transformation of many companies, accelerated by the post-Covid19. This growing digitalisation, accompanied by a greater use of collaboration and the sharing of data and documents has brought a greater need for transcription and translation services with it, which represent an opportunity to speed up interactions with all the increasingly complex supply chain players. But that is not all. The increased use of digitalisation also by consumers, who have embraced e-commerce on a global scale, with a conviction never seen before, also brings new expectations that companies must meet. First of all, to receive information on products in their native language. A need destined to become the norm and not the exception in all markets. The challenge is twofold: bringing content to market faster and at sustainable costs, being able to do it with tools that guarantee terminological consistency and therefore a quality translation consistent with the context and local expectations.