Shows
SlatorPodBizarre AI Research, Perplexity Ad Blunder, New RWS HiresFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with congratulations to Villam Language Services on its sale to InAnyLanguage. Slator served as joint exclusive advisor with Maveria Advisory, representing Villam throughout the end-to-end M&A process.The duo turns to Perplexity’s Localization Manager job posting, which they found almost identical to OpenAI’s earlier post, down to matching structure, order, and phrasing. They question whether copying such a specific ad shows a lack of seriousness or simply reflects practicality and efficiency.Esther and Florian talk about RWS's new leadership hires: Stephen Lamb...
2025-10-2424 min
SlatorPod#265 Slator Award, DeepL’s $5 Billion Plan, Merz Stirs EU Interpreter DebateFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with breaking news that DeepL is reportedly exploring an initial public offering (IPO) in the US at a potential USD 5bn valuation. This comes as DeepL now positions itself as a “global AI product and research company”. Florian also notes the launch of DeepL Marketplace and the appointment of Gonçalo Gaiolas as Chief Product Officer.Florian opens with the first-ever Slator Award at ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, where Guy Ratnitsky won for his thesis on data security and confidentiality in AI. The program will...
2025-10-0334 min
SlatorPod#264 ElevenLabs Surprise, ChatGPT Stunner, YouTube Dubs, Microsoft Interpreting APISlator’s Senior Research Analyst Alex Edwards joins Esther and Florian on the pod to discuss ElevenLabs’ move from a pure-play language technology platform (LTP) to becoming a language solutions integrator (LSI) by adding a managed service offering.He outlines that the LSI will now offer managed services such as dubbing, transcription, and subtitling, hiring in-house linguists and vendor managers, while charging about USD 22 per minute for dubbing.Florian then turns to YouTube’s rollout of multi-language audio tracks, which allows some creators to upload high-quality audio directly to videos and opens major opportunities for AI dub...
2025-09-1934 min
SlatorPod#259 What Microsoft’s Misunderstood Copilot Study Actually Means for the Language IndustrySlator’s Head of Research Anna Wyndham joins Florian on the pod to discuss Microsoft’s research paper “Working with AI: Measuring the Occupational Implications of Generative AI”, a study that stirred significant debate across social media.The paper, based on 200,000 anonymized Microsoft Copilot interactions, aims to understand what tasks people ask AI to perform and how effectively those tasks are completed. Pairing this with the US O*NET database of occupational tasks, researchers created an "AI applicability score" to assess overlap between AI-capable tasks and real-world job functions.Anna emphasizes that the researchers distinguish between...
2025-08-0723 min
SlatorPod#257 The 50 Top Language AI Startups of 2025Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, including the newly released Slator 2025 Language AI 50 Under 50, showcasing fifty of the most innovative and fast-growing language AI startups founded within the past fifty months.The duo explain how Slator sifted through hundreds of companies, assessing innovation, practical solutions to real buyer problems, and strong market positioning. The final fifty span five categories: multilingual video and audio, live speech translation, transcription and captions, translation and text generation, and accessibility.The conversation then moves on to language AI and services in the public sector. Esther...
2025-07-1129 min
SlatorPod#252 What Are Language Solutions Integrators and Language Technology Platforms?Florian and Esther welcome Slator’s Anna Wyndham and Alex Edwards to SlatorPod to explain the rationale behind the new industry framework introduced in the Slator 2025 Language Industry Market Report.Drawing from the flagship report and echoing the buzz of SlatorCon London, the team explains why the traditional labels, Language Service Providers (LSPs) and Translation Management Systems (TMSs), no longer capture the scope and complexity of the evolving market. Instead, Slator has introduced two new terms: Language Solutions Integrators (LSIs) and Language Technology Platforms (LTPs).Anna defines LTPs as pure-play technology providers that develop language to...
2025-06-0638 min
Localization Fireside ChatA Piece of Slator Is Up for Grabs… Are You In? Plus, How AcudocX Is Revolutionizing Document Translation!🔥 Industry Icon. Strategic Investor. One Candid Conversation.In this episode of the Localization Fireside Chat, I sit down with Andrew Smart—Co-Founder of Slator and Strategic Partner at AcudocX. Recorded shortly after his announcement that his shares in Slator are up for grabs, we explore what this means for the language industry and who might step up to claim a piece of the iconic brand.But that’s not all. We dive deep into Andrew’s new venture, AcudocX, a game-changing platform transforming how personal document translations are delivered with speed, automation, and profitability.💡 What...
2025-05-181h 00
SlatorPod#245 Dealmaker Wows with 10M Translation Education GiftFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, breaking down Slator’s 2025 Language Service Provider Index (LSPI), which features nearly 300 LSPs and reports 6.6% combined growth in 2024 revenues, totaling USD 8.4bn.Florian touches on a surprise USD 10m donation from private equity executive Mario Giannini to launch a new MA translation and interpreting program at California State University, Long Beach. The duo talks about McKinsey’s State of AI report, which continues to classify translators as AI-related roles and shows that hiring them has become slightly easier.In Esther’s M&A corner, TransP...
2025-03-2831 min
SlatorPod#240 Anthropic Stuns with Fact About Claude Use for AI TranslationFlorian and Esther, along with Slator Head of Research, Anna Wyndham, discuss the language industry and AI news of the week, with findings from Anthropic’s recent research on Claude’s usage. The analysis of over 4 million conversations revealed a surprising fact about how people use AI for translation.Turning to YouTube, Florian discussed CEO Neal Mohan’s statement that AI dubbing is among the platform’s "big bets" for 2025.In a spree of AI announcements, Deepgram unveiled its Nova-3 speech-to-text model for enterprise use and Panjaya launched Pod Pro, an AI-powered multilingual sync tool. Meanwhil...
2025-02-1434 min
SlatorPod#237 DeepL Voice Launch and Interpreter Job SurpriseFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, focusing on Slator’s latest M&A and Funding Report, which highlights over 50 mergers, acquisitions, and financial investments, and nearly 20 funding rounds in 2024.Florian discusses OpenAI’s ChatGPT o1 model, praising its translation accuracy for complex texts like German legal documents, though he notes slower processing speeds and challenges with low-resource languages.In Esther’s first M&A and funding corner for 2025, MotionPoint has acquired KeyContent, Synthesia has raised a USD 180m Series D, bringing its valuation to over USD 2bn, and Pocketalk raised USD 15...
2025-01-1730 min
SlatorPod#232 Reddit Rises on AI Translation, TransPerfect Buys StudioFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with Slator’s latest Translation as a Feature (TaaF) Report, which explores how AI translation is becoming an integral feature in enterprise technology.Florian talks about Reddit’s success with machine translation (MT). By localizing content into French, the social media platform quadrupled daily active users in France, demonstrating the high ROI of investing millions in AI-driven localization each quarter.In an M&A corner, Esther discusses Wolfestone’s acquisition of TauRho Transcribes, beefing up Wolfestone’s offerings in transcription and life sciences. She also cov...
2024-11-1527 min
SlatorPod#228 OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode and Interpreting, AI Dubs for InstagramFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with Slator’s latest Pro Guide on Audiovisual Translation, which outlines opportunities for language service providers (LSPs) and how AI is impacting the field.In a language AI corner, Florian covers Alibaba’s recent launch of a proprietary large language model (LLM) for translation, which will help expand the e-commerce giant’s global reach. He also adds that Reddit has piloted machine translation (MT) for French content, a success that will see it roll out to more than 35 countries.Florian highlights NVIDIA’s move into MT...
2024-10-2329 min
SlatorPod#226 MTPE Use, Pricing, AI Adoption, and Other Findings from the 2024 ALC SurveyShamus Sayed, COO of Interpreters Unlimited, and Anna Wyndham, Slator’s Head of Research, join SlatorPod to discuss key findings from the 2024 ALC Industry Survey Report, covering industry growth, profitability, service diversification, and the impact of AI.Shamus kicks off the podcast by explaining the origins and purpose of the Association of Language Companies (ALC) and its annual survey, which aims to establish industry standards and measure the value added by language service companies.Anna shares details about the survey, which saw a 50% increase in participation from last year, with 127 companies taking part. Participants mainly co...
2024-10-0429 min
SlatorPod#222 Hacks, Strikes, Layoffs, Rankings, and Localization JobsFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with key highlights from the latest Slator Pro Guide: The Future of Language Industry Jobs. The guide focuses on the future of jobs and freelance opportunities in the language industry, noting the impact of AI on employment trends.The duo analyze the 2024 Inc. 5,000 list, which includes 14 LSPs this year, with companies like PGLS, Propio Language Services, and Boostlingo among the highest-ranked, demonstrating strong growth over the past three years.In other industry news, amid a rocky Q2 2024, AMN Healthcare Services reported an 18% year-on-year increase...
2024-08-2232 min
SlatorPod#215 Humanless LSP as a Fun Weekend ProjectFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, giving a recap of SlatorCon London and exploring some use cases from the Slator Pro Guide: Language AI for Consumers.Florian talks about Andrew Ng's recent project on agentic machine translation, which involves using large language models (LLMs) to create a virtual language service provider (LSP).The duo touch on Apple's recent Worldwide Developer Conference, where Apple Watch is set to get a translation widget and also recently announced a new translation API.Florian shares RWS's half-year financial results, where despite declines...
2024-06-1334 min
SlatorPod#203 The Top 50 Language AI Companies to Watch in 2024Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with Head of Research Anna Wyndham joining to give a breakdown of the 2024 Slator Language AI 50 Under 50, a list highlighting 50 of the newest and most notable language AI companies.The list focuses on 50 language AI companies under 50 months old, showcasing their innovations in speech-to-text, machine translation, speech synthesis, and more.Esther talks about Disney's Accelerator Program, which invested in two language AI startups: ElevenLabs and AudioShake. AudioShake uses AI to parse audio tracks for mixing or dubbing and ElevenLabs, a multilingual AI voice startup...
2024-03-0839 min
SlatorPod#201 Ranking the World’s Largest Translation and Localization CompaniesFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week with a first look at the newly released 2024 Slator Language Service Provider Index (LSPI) where they unpack the key findings from over 250 LSPs on the ranking.Leading the 2024 LSPI is Super Agency TransPerfect, who recently appointed Jin Lee as the new Co-CEO. Lee began as a project manager at the Super Agency before working through various production roles and rising through the ranks.Slator recently launched the first edition of its Language AI Briefing, a summary of the top AI stories, language AI startups...
2024-02-2324 min
SlatorPod#194 Epic Battle in Automatic Speech TranslationFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with the release of Slator’s Pro Guide: Solution Sales for Language Service Providers and more exciting research to come.The duo talk about the latest in language AI, with OpenAI gaining traction as a potential default for machine translation, and the firing and rehiring of CEO Sam Altman. Meanwhile, the European Patent Office has denied Google's patent application for neural machine translation. The podcast explores the emergence of speech translation as a key focus for major technology companies, with Google launching Translatotron 3 and Ge...
2023-12-1338 min
SlatorPod#191 Translation AI Watershed Moment in German ParliamentFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with the release of Slator’s new Pro Guide: Scaling an LSP Key Account. The duo analyzed the job requirements and responsibilities for an AI Localization Analyst at Chubb, an insurance company.Florian discusses when he, for the first time, realized he briefly fell for a third-party-created video. A speech by Joana Cotar, a member of Germany’s lower house of parliament, was translated and lip-synced into English using AI. Far from being critical of her voice being cloned and her speech bein...
2023-11-1531 min
SlatorPod#181 ChatGPT Translation Quality Reality CheckFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, where amid ChatGPT's new enterprise launch, Florian tested ChatGPT's translation quality and came across mistranslations and awkward phrasing.Florian highlights the launch of the Slator Pro Guide: Subtitling and Captioning, providing an overview of its content and use cases. The discussion shifted to Meta's latest release SeamlessM4T which handles various translation-related tasks, including speech recognition, speech-to-speech translation, and more, across 100+ languages.Meanwhile, Appen shares price dropped considerably, so they aim to reposition themselves more toward generative AI but may face stiff competition from...
2023-09-0132 min
Localization Fireside ChatConversation with Florian Faes: The story of Slator & L10N Industry updateHere is the chat that I had with my friend and colleague Florian Faes, the Managing Director of Slator, in our upcoming episode of the Localization Fireside Chat! In this episode, we covered: the dynamic world of translation, localization, and language technology. Florian Faes, who is a seasoned professional with extensive experience in the industry, gives us valuable insights and expertise. Based in #Zurich, Florian has a deep understanding of the global market, having spent nearly a decade in Asia before co-founding Slator in 2015. Slator has since become the go-to source for news and research in the #translation, #localization, and...
2023-07-1847 min
SlatorPod#168 Google Bard Refuses to Translate, Launching Slator AnswersThis week Diego Bartolome, Founder of sintetic.ai, joined us on SlatoPod to talk about empowering companies to achieve more with generative artificial intelligence, including Slator with Slator Answers.Diego discusses how he collaborated with Slator to create a chat interface that allows Slator subscribers to question an AI model specifically trained on our research, podcast transcripts, and thousands of articles. Florian gives a brief demonstration of Slator Answers’ natural language querying abilities and puts the model on the spot by asking a question in German.Esther takes a look at a graphic from Slator’s 20...
2023-05-2632 min
SlatorPod#166 Translation and Localization Industry Maintains Growth in 2022 to USD 27.9bnFlorian and Esther discuss the launch of Slator’s flagship 2023 Language Industry Market Report. The 140-page report provides a comprehensive view of the global language services and language technology industry, which Slator estimates grew over 4% to nearly USD 28bn in 2022 on the back of a strong first half.The duo talk about OpenAI’s new endeavor to enforce its branding guidelines to prevent companies from using GPT in their names or products. OpenAI believes that using GPT in branding confuses end-users, as it may imply a partnership or endorsement where there isn't one.Esther examines Appe...
2023-05-1222 min
SlatorPod#154 Fastest Growing LSPs, MrBeast’s New Dubbing CompanyFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with the world’s most popular YouTuber, MrBeast, launching a dubbing services company called Creator Global. MrBeast’s latest entrepreneurial move comes as YouTube confirmed it will roll out its multi-track audio to thousands more users.Over in Australia, Ai-Media shared its financial results for the first half of 2023, with revenues remaining flat and EBITDA edging up a bit. When asked about ChatGPT, Ai-Media CEO Tony Abrahams said that it did not pose a threat to the access service provider.Data-for-AI provider Appen released “far fr...
2023-03-0329 min
SlatorPod#152 Language Technology Dominates in Research, RFPs, and FundingFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, kicking off with highlights from Slator’s latest Game Localization Report. The 100-page report outlines the role that localization plays in bringing games to life and onto the market.In funding news, former Keywords Studios’ Exec, Andrea Ballista, raised EUR 1m in a seed round for his new machine dubbing venture, Voiseed. The funds will go towards Voiseed’s voice platform, Revoiceit, by improving its patented AI core technology and proprietary emotional multilingual dataset.Former SlatorPod guest and ADAPT Centre’s MT researcher Yasmin Moslem c...
2023-02-1724 min
SlatorPod#149 How Good Is ChatGPT at Translation, Olympic-sized RSI ContractFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, kicking off with a sneak peek into the brand new Slator 2022 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report. Spanning 44 pages, the report covers 62 M&A transactions and 18 startup and tech funding rounds. Following the latest research in ChatGPT, Intento published an article comparing ChatGPT translations to translations done by other stock MT engines. Florian discusses the results with ChatGPT performing well for English to Spanish but found lacking for English to German.The Committee for Organizing the Olympic and Paralympic Games is looking for...
2023-02-0322 min
SlatorPod#145 Everyone’s Talking About ChatGPT, DeepL Crowned UnicornFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with the hype surrounding ChatGPT. Slator joined in by prompting ChatGPT to answer questions as if it were a translation manager.After reports back in November 2022 stated that DeepL was in the final stretch of closing a major investment round, DeepL has finally confirmed that it raised funds from VCs at a billion-dollar valuation.Translator Scammers Directory shared their annual report of scammer activities in 2022. Last year saw the first dip in new scammer IDs since 2018, signaling lower payoffs for imposters involved in the...
2023-01-1323 min
SlatorPod#139 AI Dubbing Finds Traction, Translation Buyer’s Guide PublishedIn this week’s episode, Florian is joined by Anna Wyndham, Senior Research Analyst at Slator. The two discuss the language industry news of the week, with a recap of the Nordic Translation Industry Forum held in Sweden last week. The NTIF covered a broad range of presentations, including a talk from Ikea about how they are building a custom machine translation (MT) engine from scratch.In startup funding, AI dubbing startup, NeuralGarage, raised USD 1.45m in a seed round led by Exfinity Ventures. While this is the latest in a series of Indian machine dubbing startups to...
2022-11-2517 min
SlatorPod#136 Deepgram: From Dark Matter to Deep Learning Speech API With Scott StephensonScott Stephenson, CEO of Deepgram, joins SlatorPod to talk about his unique journey to co-founding the deep tech, automatic speech recognition (ASR) company and raising over USD 50m in funding.Scott recalls how his experience working with dark matter detectors as a particle physicist in China led to him becoming a deep-learning entrepreneur. He discusses some challenges in solving ASR; from labeling data for machine learning to formulating and executing an effective go-to-market strategy.The CEO gives his thoughts on Whisper, OpenAI’s open-source ASR model, and how it may actually grow the total addressable ma...
2022-11-0453 min
SlatorPod#133 Sizing the Global Interpreting Market, DeepL Hiring, Europe’s Audiovisual HubFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week and announce the launch of Slator’s Interpreting Services and Technology Report. The 60-page report provides a 360-degree view on the growth industry of interpreting. The report features analysis by mode, setting, geo, buyers, use cases, and more.Florian touches on a new interpreting feature released by Microsoft, which allows simultaneous unidirectional interpretation in 16 language pairs in Teams Meetings. In addition, Microsoft will finish rolling out its multilingual live captioning functionality for Teams in early October 2022.Big Language Solutions has announced the appointment of Di...
2022-09-2324 min
SlatorPod#131 Automating Subtitling, Dubbing, Live Captioning With XL8 CEO Tim JungTim Jung, CEO of XL8, joins SlatorPod to talk about the startup’s journey — from co-founding the media-focused machine translation company with former Apple Software Engineer, Jay Park, to raising a USD 3m bridge round in August 2022.Tim discusses his experience working for Samsung and Google and how they have adopted an engineering-driven culture at XL8.The CEO walks through their product MediaCAT, which allows users to streamline media localization workflows in three steps: sync, translate, and dub. XL8 also recently launched EventCAT, where users can interpret or add live subtitles for events through the powe...
2022-09-0952 min
SlatorPod#127 LSP Leadership Changes and Interpreting Shake-Up Across the GlobeIn this week’s episode, Florian and Anna discuss the language industry news of the week, with RWS announcing the appointment of Julie Southern as Chairperson Designate. Another leadership change saw Heith Mackay-Cruise replacing Phil Norman as Chairman of the Board at Straker Translations. Meanwhile, the UK Immigration Enforcement outlines exceptional cases in which staff might use a translation device instead of on-site or telephonic interpreting.In Canada, the Board of Internal Economy (BOIE), has approved a six-month pilot project that allows the use of “external” and “remote” interpreters for parliamentary sessions. The duo talk about a EUR...
2022-07-2916 min
SlatorPod#120 Academic Translation and Author Services as Growth Markets With ALE CEO, Avi StaimanWe are joined by Avi Staiman, CEO of Academic Language Experts (ALE) to discuss translation for the academic publishing sector.Avi shares his background studying and working in the education sector and how this led to him founding ALE. He delves into ALE’s services, which range from editing and translating materials for scholars before they pitch their book or article to big research institutions and funding agencies.The CEO talks about the role of English as lingua franca in academia and how non-native English scholars are at a disadvantage as a result. He runs th...
2022-06-0358 min
SlatorPod#115 Dispatch From GALA San Diego 2022In this week’s episode, Slator’s very own Andrew Smart joins us from sunny San Diego for a report on what took place at GALA 2022 and to discuss the language industry news of the week.Florian talks about how RWS’ shares jumped after Baring Private Equity Asia confirmed that it is in the “preliminary stages of considering a possible offer” to take over the Super Agency. This announcement comes a month after RWS unveiled its new strategy at the LSP’s Capital Markets Event.Meanwhile, ZOO Digital beats its full-year guidance. The media localization provider now...
2022-04-2916 min
SlatorPod#113 Translation and Localization Industry Grows 11.8% in 2021 to USD 26.6bnSlator’s very own Anna Wyndham joins the pod to share key insights from our flagship Slator 2022 Language Industry Market Report.Totalling 100 pages, the report covers language industry growth, the LSP competitive landscape, core language industry technologies, and market outlook. Anna starts off by breaking down market size by vertical, geographic region, and buyer intention. She also touches on spotlight topics, such as remote interpreting, media localization, and expert-in-the-loop.Anna reviews frontier language technologies, with speech-to-speech translation, synthetically dubbed media, and synthetically generated content marketing having the potential to disrupt and expand the market. Florian gi...
2022-04-1428 min
SlatorPod#111 Boostlingo CEO Bryan Forrester on Fundraising, M&A, Scaling Interpreting TechnologyIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Bryan Forrester, Co-founder and CEO of Boostlingo, a Texas-based interpreting software and technology provider.Bryan begins with his journey to co-founding Boostlingo; from selling his first tech startup, Anchor Software, to entering the interpreting space. The CEO shares his experience partnering with growth equity firm Mainsail Partners in order to scale the business through hiring and M&A. He addresses the VoiceBoxer and Interpreter Intelligence acquisitions as part of a strategy to expand into remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) and on-demand scheduling. He talks about some of the...
2022-04-0149 min
SlatorPod#108 Low Resource, High Potential — NeuralSpace CEO Felix Laumann on Democratizing NLPFelix Laumann, CEO of NeuralSpace, joins SlatorPod to talk all about the no-code, low-code natural language processing (NLP) platform for low-resource languages.Felix recalls his journey to startup CEO in the NLP milieu after coming from a computer and mechanical engineering background; plus the origin story of NeuralSpace. He discusses the difficulty behind building models for low-resource languages when faced with less than 1% of data available.The CEO recounts his experience connecting with investors to raise a USD 1.7m seed round. He explains how machine translation fits into their framework, with the main use-case being...
2022-03-1149 min
SlatorPod#106 Ranking the World’s Largest Language Service ProvidersIn this week’s episode, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, kicking off with some key stats from the Slator 2022 Language Service Provider Index (LSPI). Florian talks about the latest in M&A news, where the low-resource language API platform NeuralSpace raised USD 1.7m in a seed round led by Merus Capital. To cap off the episode, the duo unpacks a recent post from Meta titled, “Teaching AI to translate 100s of spoken and written languages in real time”, where the company announced two new projects.
2022-02-2517 min
SlatorPod#104 Audio Localization in Video Games With Alessandra VincenziAlessandra Vincenzi, Head of Audio Localization at Keywords Studios, joins SlatorPod to talk about the ins and outs of audio localization in the video game industry.Alessandra starts with her route into the audio localization space with Binari Sonori and her transition to Keywords Studios. She shares the differences between localizing for mobile versus Triple-A games.She also talks about casting, onboarding, and categorizing voice-acting talent and how actors are matched to different clients. She goes into possible use cases for artificial voices in video games and the migration to remote recording solutions....
2022-02-1140 min
SlatorPod#101 The World of Japanese Game and Media Localization With Katrina LeonoudakisKatrina Leonoudakis joins SlatorPod to discuss her experience as a Japanese-to-English Localization Specialist in the world of anime, manga, and video games.Katrina recounts her early years as a freelance translator and her experience breaking into the entertainment and media space. She shares the main cultural and linguistic challenges when localizing a Japanese game to adapt to a Western English-speaking culture.Katrina talks about how she deals with balancing the needs and preferences of the original scriptwriter, target audience, and client. She also reflects...
2022-01-211h 09
SlatorPod#99 Lokalise’s USD 50m Series B; 2021 Industry Highlights and 2022 OutlookIn SlatorPod’s final episode for 2021, Florian and Esther are joined by Slator’s very own Andrew Smart to share the top industry highlights over the past year.Florian looks back on 2021, which saw approximately 60 M&A transactions and 25 funding rounds announced this year, with big moves such as TransPerfect acquiring Semantix. For 2022, Florian predicts additional competition as the likes of DeepL engage in a direct battle for enterprise account ownership, with tech continuing to develop in the core localization and TMS area.Wi...
2021-12-1718 min
SlatorPod#97 Smartling Mega-Round, Avantpage CEO on Serving LEP PopulationsLuis Miguel, CEO of Avantpage Translations, joins SlatorPod to talk about the LSP’s mission over the past 25 years of helping immigrants and other limited-English-proficient (LEP) populations.Luis walks us through his journey in the language industry, from immigrating from Mexico to founding and leading a California-based LSP. He introduces Avantpage’s leadership team and highlights the importance of developing talent within the company as it grows.The CEO discusses the key differences between servicing government clients versus the private sector. He reflects on the dynamics of L...
2021-12-0351 min
SlatorPod#92 Blazing-Fast Machine Translation With Kenneth HeafieldIn this week’s SlatorPod, we’re joined by Kenneth Heafield, Reader in Machine Translation (MT) at the University of Edinburgh. We originally connected with Kenneth on Twitter in a discussion about Slator’s coverage of a research paper on Carbon Emissions in MT.Kenneth talks about his experience going back and forth between academia and industry, reflecting on the pros and cons of working for Big Tech. He discusses his recent research with efficient translation and language modelling as well as other MT topics that are un...
2021-10-291h 06
SlatorPod#91 Judging Google Translate, TransPerfect’s Road to the Billion, Media Loc Hub SpainIn this week’s episode, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with continued disruption to subtitling, caption and audio description on UK’s Channel 4, after water damage at Red Bee Media’s broadcast center ruined a large number of hard disks.In media localization news, Esther talks about Spain’s plans to invest EUR 1.6bn into the audiovisual sector from now through 2025, with the aim of expanding the industry by 30%. Meanwhile, Florian shares key findings from Memsour...
2021-10-2226 min
SlatorPod#90 On XTRF and Scaling a Translation Management System with Andrzej NedomaAndrzej Nedoma, Co-founder and CEO of XTRF, joins SlatorPod to discuss the journey of the translation management system (TMS).Andrzej begins with XTRF’s early days as a spin-off of family-owned LSP Lidolang and building the company with Co-founder, Dominik Radziszowski. He talks about the rationale behind pivoting from licenses to SaaS in 2014 and the funding decisions with Experior Venture Fund.The XTRF CEO unpacks the process behind investment firm K1...
2021-10-0854 min
SlatorPod#85 Advocating for Interpreters in Afghanistan with Red T Spokesperson Rebecca PetrasRebecca Petras, Spokesperson for non-profit Red T, joins SlatorPod to bring awareness to their advocacy for the protection of translators and interpreters in high-risk settings.Rebecca shares details of her professional background in journalism and discusses how she began her journey in the language industry through the humanitarian sector. She talks about the current situation of interpreters in Afghanistan and explains how the rising danger for linguists over the past few months led to her becoming involved with Red T and its Founder Maya...
2021-09-0338 min
SlatorPod#84 M&A Shakes Up Nordic Language Industry, New Language Operations Pro GuideSlator’s very own Senior Research Analyst Anna Wyndham joins the Pod to give a sneak peek into the latest Slator Pro Guide: Language Operations. The 40-page guide is packed with data from public and proprietary sources, including 11 interviews with language service providers (LSPs) at different stages of growth across Europe, Asia, and North America.Anna unpacks the five key areas of the report that cover how LSPs structure operations, linguist supply chain models, an analysis of the global footprint of LSPs, program management, and payment risks. She concludes with a...
2021-08-2737 min
SlatorPod#81 TransPerfect Blowout Q2, Welocalize Buyer NLG, Reframing Video LocalizationIn this week’s solo episode, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, kicking off with a sneak peek into the brand new Slator 2021 Video Localization Report. Months in the making, the report provides an innovative look at the high-growth medium of video.Florian shares news of TransPerfect’s best quarter ever (Q2 FY21), which saw the US-based Super Agency reel in an extra USD 70m in revenues compared to the same period in 2020.The duo also unpack the acquisition by language service provider Welocalize of Germany- and Greece-based life sciences spec...
2021-07-2323 min
SlatorPod#78 Zoom Adds Live Translation, Netflix Dubbing News, Toppan’s Christophe DjaouaniChristophe Djaouani, President of newly launched Toppan Digital Language, joins SlatorPod to discuss the Japanese corporate giant’s plans to become a leader in translation for regulated industries.Christophe shares his career journey; from his days as project manager at RR Donnelley to how he worked his way up to Executive Vice President at SDL. He introduces the members of the Toppan Digital Language executive team.In an exclusive, Christophe announces that Toppan Printing will be renamed Toppan Inc. to reflect the transformation of the company. He goes over the benefits of having existing pockets of...
2021-07-021h 01
SlatorPod#71 Unbabel CEO Vasco Pedro on Translation Productivity, Lisbon’s Startup Scene, Growth PlansVasco Pedro, CEO of Unbabel, joins SlatorPod to discuss the company’s growth journey — from identifying the initial use case to raising USD 60m in Series C funding in 2019, and beyond.Vasco outlines Unbabel’s translation pipeline and underlying technology. He describes the importance of the human-in-the-loop model and the ability humans have to impact the output of machine learning (ML) models.The CEO talks about the challenges of ‘going remote’ overnight in response to Covid. Vasco says culture plays an important role in attracting top talent globally in the highly-competitive AI / ML space.Vasco al...
2021-05-141h 17
SlatorPod#70 Appen Shares Plunge, TRSB Buys Anglocom, Evaluating MT, Huge RFP in SwedenOn SlatorPod this week, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week — and share the exciting agenda for SlatorCon Remote, which is just around the corner. Florian briefly discusses the breaking news of Appen shares taking a beating, causing trading to halt. Esther talks about Canadian LSP TRSB’s acquisition of local rival Anglocom. According to TRSB CEO Mary Kazamias, Anglocom’s in-house linguists were central to the acquisition. The two discuss Google’s latest research paper on machine translation. Conclusion: It is better to hire professional translators to train an advanced MT system...
2021-05-0736 min
SlatorPod#64 Language I/O Founders on USD 5m Series A, AI Writer, Translation Pricing ReportLanguage I/O Co-founders Heather Shoemaker (CEO) and Kaarina Kvaavik (CBO) join the pod this week to discuss their newly announced Series A round, channel partnerships with CRM systems, expanding beyond their core multilingual customer support offering, and the future of subscription-based pricing models.The two duo join SlatorPod fresh off their USD 5m funding round, which was announced on March 23, 2021. Kaarina and Heather discuss their journey from founding and bootstrapping Language I/O to bringing on angel and VC investors in early 2021, and their plans for deploying the latest investment.Heather talks about the...
2021-03-261h 10
SlatorPod#63 Alex Katsambas on Localizing Billions of Words in Luxury FashionIn this week’s SlatorPod, Farfetch's Head of Linguistic Services, Alex Katsambas talks about the online luxury fashion platform’s localization model.Alex talks about Farfetch’s internal teams, churning out billions of words annually, the importance of sustainability in content messaging, and why return-on-investment for localization cannot be measured immediately.He shares insights into Farfetch’s approach to content differentiation, and explains why treating various content verticals differently is essential, particularly when thinking about integrating machine translation (MT).Having already rolled out MT for two languages, Alex tackles expanding Farfetch’s use of MT in t...
2021-03-191h 09
SlatorPod#62 Netflix A/B Testing, Travod CEO Elena Grigoras, Ban in JapanTravod CEO Elena Grigoras joins the pod to discuss LSP’s past, present, and future. Elena talks about the company’s client mix and how Travod manages the balance of servicing both third-party LSPs — initially the company’s primary focus — and end customers. She discusses the relationship with Travod’s sister companies, Worldminds and Traduno (translation technology arm), and parent company Mondia Technologies Group. Elena outlines Travod’s technology stack, which includes their proprietary business management system, Traduno, and discusses market demand for customer portals.Elena shares Travod’s approach to business development and hiring sales talent, and...
2021-03-121h 05
SlatorPod#61 XTM CEO Bob Willans on Raising Capital and the Future of Translation PricingXTM CEO Bob Willans joins the pod to discuss the journey of the company he co-founded back in 2002. Bob talks about growing XTM with little outside funding to become a USD 11m SaaS company in 2021.He discusses XTM’s decision and search to bring on financial backers in 2021, which culminated in XTM’s majority sale to US-based investment firm K1 Investment Management in January 2021.Bob shares his views on the TMS funding and investment boom in 2020 and unpacks the landmark shifts in translation management technology over the past two decades.Bob also talks abou...
2021-03-0552 min
SlatorPod#57 Kudo CEO Fardad Zabetian on Multilingual Meetings, Job Index JumpsIn SlatorPod #57, Fardad Zabetian, Co-Founder and CEO of multilingual conferencing platform KUDO joins us to discuss the world of conferences and interpreting, his vision for KUDO from the get-go, and his company’s explosive growth during the pandemic. Fardad, who launched another of his businesses, Conference Rental, in the early 2000s, shares anecdotes from the early days of KUDO, talks about his commitment to removing the friction points in sourcing interpreters for the private sector, and tells us about his experience of securing USD 6m in funding during Covid-19. First up, Florian and Esther discuss lang...
2021-02-0556 min
SlatorPod#55 Memsource CEO on Buying Phrase, Straker’s Lingotek Deal, TransPerfect FY 2020In SlatorPod #55, aka “TMS week,” Memsource Founder and CEO David Canek joins us to talk about the acquisition of localization SaaS provider Phrase, announced just this week. David walks us through his company’s milestones, from Memsource’s launch in 2010 as a cloud-based TMS and their very first paying customer in 2012, to growing as a bootstrapped company until July 2020, when investment firm giant Carlyle took a majority stake in the company.He shares insights into the acquisition of Germany-based Phrase, discusses why their developer-targeted product is complementary to Memsource’s offering, and outlines the direction of the company
2021-01-2259 min
SlatorPod#54 Oxford Languages President Casper Grathwohl, M&A Report, LSP Growth OpportunitiesPresident of Oxford Languages Casper Grathwohl joins the Pod from sunny Florida this week to discuss OUP’s business in lexical data, working with big tech customers, the world’s under-served and low resource languages, and more.First up, Florian (from snowy Switzerland) and Esther (from lockdown London) talk about Slator’s newly-launched 2020 M&A and Funding report, a 40-page report with in-depth analysis of the 39 M&A transactions and 13 startup rounds covered by Slator in 2020. Esther gives an update from the UK, where the Ministry of Defence (MoD) launched a new USD 74m call for exp...
2021-01-151h 01
SlatorPod#53 Supertext Co-founder Fabian Dieziger, Brexit & Translators, SBA regulations for US LSPsIn the first episode of 2021, Fabian Dieziger, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Swiss-based language service provider (LSP) Supertext, joins the pod to discuss the local Switzerland market, Supertext’s US and Germany expansion and their copywriting roots, and why they’ve chosen to shun M&A in favor of organic growth.Florian and Esther talk about Slator’s all-new 2021 Data-for-AI Report, which is designed to help LSPs evaluate and pursue opportunities in the fast-growing niche of providing data for AI customers.Esther shares an update on how the UK-EU trade and cooperation agreement will impact freela...
2021-01-0858 min
SlatorPod#52 Top 10 Stories of 2020, Isabelle Andrieu, co-Founder and Chairman of TranslatedIn the final episode of 2020, Isabelle Andrieu, co-Founder and Chairman of Italy-based LSP Translated, joins the pod to talk about her 20-year journey with Translated, their ModernMT and MateCat products, and why long-tail clients are still the soul of the business. Florian and Esther share their top five picks from Slator’s most viewed stories of 2020, singling out heavy-hitters from the year such as RWS’ acquisition of rival LSP SDL (the #1 breaking-news story of 2020), and Acolad’s acquisition of AMPLEXOR.Florian’s other picks include: Freelancers’ AB5 exemption win in California; LSPs suing a client over “pollu...
2020-12-1857 min
SlatorPod#51 RWS’ Plans for SDL, Top 10 NMT Papers, Graduating Translation in 2020The special guest for episode #51 is Slator’s very own Monica Jamieson, a new translation grad who joins the Pod to talk about why today’s 20-somethings are studying languages, and to offer tips on language industry job hunting during Covid-19.Esther shares her key takeaways from SlatorCon Remote on December 3, 2020, which drew in +250 attendees from 30 countries, who tuned in to watch 6 CEOs, a CMO and 3 enterprise clients provide insights from their vantage points in the language industry. Florian talks about the top 10 most influential research papers on neural machine translation (NMT), based on Slator’s analy...
2020-12-1141 min
SlatorPod#48 GPT-3 for Translators, SLT CEO Kris Zdanowski, Translation Tests, Media Loc UnitesJoining the pod is Kris Zdanowski, Founder and CEO of Summa Linguae Technologies. Kris talks about his entrepreneurial journey, from paying for receivables collections with shares, doing a merger with an LSP in India, to rolling out an M&A strategy and launching into the data annotation industry.Florian shares a few choice insights from Slator’s Inside India’s High-Growth Language Industry webinar, which this week attracted more than 130 participants and featured four expert panelists.The two discuss startup Otherside AI, which raised USD 2.6m in funding just six months after launch for one of t...
2020-11-201h 16
SlatorPod#47 Lionbridge Mega Deal, Altagram CEO Marie Amigues talks Game LocalizationMarie Amigues, Founder and CEO of Altagram, joins Slator Pod and talks to Esther and Florian about how she runs the fast-growing game localization providerMarie recounts her experience of launching Altagram and growing the business internationally, and discusses the ins and outs of game loc.In part 1, Florian unpacks the sale of Lionbridge’s AI division to Canada’s TELUS International nearly one billion US-Dollar. He talks about the success of Lionbridge’s private equity owners, HIG Capital, in selling just one part of the business they acquired in late 2016 (Lionbridge) for nearly triple the am...
2020-11-131h 11
SlatorPod#45 Medtech Loc, Venga Global CEO Kåre Lindahl, Language AI in Video, Amazon MT FailThis week, Florian and Esther welcome Kåre Lindahl, CEO of Venga Global for a wide ranging discussion about language data as a business for LSPs, lessons from M&A, selling consulting to loc buyers, and Amazon’s Swedish MT fail.First up, Florian talks about advances in automated transcription and AI video editing including the function to edit from transcripts. (Watch this space for full SlatorPod transcripts…) The two discuss the world of translation and localization for the complex and growing medical technology (medtech) industry, and share some of the key takeaways from the newly published Slato...
2020-10-301h 11
SlatorPod#44 Facebook MT, Interprefy’s Kim Ludvigsen on RSI, Zoom Zapps, LSP EarningsInterprefy founder Kim Ludvigsen joins the pod this week to talk about why he decided to pass the CEO baton to Annett Polaszewski-Plath while business is booming after Covid restrictions turbocharged the adoption of remote simultaneous interpreting.Slator Co-founder and Commercial Director Andrew Smart guest-hosts this week. Andrew and Florian talk about TransPerfect’s solid third-quarter results, why more language service providers should consider an IPO, and why Zoom Zapps could be a big deal.Facebook’s big announcement about soon deploying massively multilingual machine translation models is also on the agenda.
2020-10-231h 03
SlatorPod#42 TransPerfect Settles Wordfast, Sandeep Nulkar on India Loc Industry, Mozilla Kills ElmoFlorian and Esther are joined by Sandeep Nulkar, CEO and Founder of BITS Private Limited and co-Founder of Vernac Language Technologies to discuss India's language industry.Before Sandeep joins us, your regular SlatorPod hosts talk about the week’s language industry stories...Florian shares news from Mozilla, which just took the decision to retire Elmo — the backbone of its localization infrastructure — and to axe hundreds of jobs. Esther talks about the recovery in the language industry job index (LIJI), which climbed above the baseline in October for the first time since March 2020. The two pic...
2020-10-0955 min
SlatorPod#41 Tarjama CEO Nour Al Hassan; Translator Marketplaces, INC 5000 LSPsSlatorPod welcomes Nour Al Hassan, CEO of the Middle East’s leading language services provider, Tarjama. A lawyer by training, Nour talks about how she started in the language industry and grew Tarjama to 160 employees, the decision to build a proprietary translation management platform, and her take on language services demand in the MENA region.Before Nour’s segment, Slator’s Florian and Esther kick off the week’s language industry news with a discussion about translator marketplaces in light of Across Systems’ decision to retire their version of it, “Crossmarket.” (Spoiler alert: They plan to launch a new one in 2...
2020-10-0256 min
SlatorPod#37 First guest episode with Kimon Fountoukidis! Plus RWS-SDL, China NLP Ban, AB5, Translation at WTOFlorian and Esther are joined by 🎤special guest 🎤Kimon Fountoukidis, Founder and Chairman of Argos Multilingual for a frank and animated discussion about the language industry.Florian also provides an update on the market reaction following the breaking news last week that RWS plans to acquire SDL later this yearEsther talks international trade — more specifically how translation and interpreting are run at the World Trade Organization (WTO) —, sharing insights from Josep Bonet, Division Director, Language and Documentation Services Division at WTO.Florian reviews the latest developments in the AB5 saga over in California...
2020-09-041h 06SlatorPod#36 RWS to Buy SDL: Unpacking the Language Industry’s Deal of the DecadeIn this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther share a hot take on❗the story of the week❗— if not of recent language industry history: RWS’s acquisition of rival SDL. The coming together of the two UK-based Super Agencies will see the creation of the first ever billion-dollar-revenue LSP, and TransPerfect stripped of its current title of world’s largest LSP by revenueThe two whizz through the YTD trading performance of RWS, SDL and the seven other listed LSPs that Slator tracks. After a predictable Covid-19-related dip between February and April 2020, which LSPs bounced back stronge...
2020-08-2830 min
SlatorPod#33 How LSPs Sell, RWS Pays Back, Machine Mistranslations, Signs of Life for Loc JobsIn episode 33 of SlatorPod, Florian and Esther talk about fresh signs of recovery in the language industry, from the Slator Language Industry Job Index (LIJI) — which rose (slightly) in August 2020 for the first time since the pandemic hit — to encouraging survey data from the ATC UK’s Coronavirus Pulse Survey in July.The two also share news that the world’s most valuable listed LSP, UK-based RWS, decided to voluntarily hand back money to the UK government that they received under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. It’s probably not a huge sum of cash that RWS is giving...
2020-08-0728 min
SlatorPod#29 Stripe on Lack of Translation, More Memsource, SlatorCon, Best MT PaperFlorian talks about research from Silicon Valley start-up Stripe, which surveyed hundreds of e-commerce websites for issues at checkout, the most common of which was a lack of local language translations. The two discuss SlatorCon Remote, where the 300-strong audience heard about e-commerce localization courtesy of multilingual content provider Quill. Also present at Slator’s inaugural remote conference was EasyLing, whose CEO described their web proxy solution for translated website. We had a private equity perspective on the industry, heard from CRM SaaS company Pipedrive about their localization operations, and featured experts across media and game localization, and...
2020-07-1027 min
SlatorPod#28 Memsource Goes Big, UK Mega Tender, Intento Seed Round, Jobs Decline SlowsIn this week’s episode, Florian shares breaking news from the world of M&A and funding, as translation technology provider Memsource sold a majority stake to private equity giant Carlyle and machine translation matchmaker Intento raised USD 3m. Esther discusses a nationwide mega-tender for language services due to launch in August 2020 in the UK: the pan-government RFP is worth GBP 110m over three years and is designed to replace an existing contract that has been extended due to coronavirus. Keen to get the procurement process right, the buyer is hosting a webinar at the end of Ju...
2020-07-0325 min
SlatorPod#27 Apple Translate, Localised Series A, SOSi Invests in Apptek, L10N at Deliveroo, Japan M&AFlorian and Esther discuss Apple’s announcement that its new operating system, iOS 14, will come pre-loaded with a Translate app when it’s released in September 2020. The Translate app will run on NMT, be one of just a few dozen built-in iPhone apps, and allow users to translate without an internet connection. What will this mean for other translation apps?Esther shares news of e-commerce company Localised’s USD 6.5m funding round with investment from a UK growth fund and celebrity entrepreneur Peter Jones of Dragon’s Den fame. Localised provides pre-built localized websites to help brands connect with prospective customer...
2020-06-2628 min
SlatorPod#26 Biggest MT Survey, Interpreter Protest, Google Translate, M&A is BackIn a half-year anniversary episode, Florian and Esther unpack a wide-scale European Union survey of small and medium enterprises. Nearly 2,900 SMEs responded to questions about their language needs, MT use and attitudes of MT, as the EU rolls out an expansion program for their free automated translation platform, eTranslation.Florian ponders why a public body like the EU would be concerned with making MT available for use among private sector companies, and discusses a recent blog post from Google on the latest tweaks and techniques they’re applying to MT. The two talk about media localizer IYUNO’s acquisition of Germ...
2020-06-1927 min
SlatorPod#25 Google TM Snafu, Translator Salaries, RWS Iconic M&A, AB5 in CaliforniaFlorian and Esther talk Google snafu, delving into the story of how Google “inadvertently sent” users’ translation memory data to someone else. Users of the now retired Google Toolkit, a free cloud-based translation productivity, may have had their translation memory contents shared with another user as a result of a technical issue affecting download requests.Florian discusses UK-based RWS’ acquisition of machine translation provider Iconic Translation Machines for a whopping USD 20m maximum, or 16x revenues. Why would the world’s most valuable LSP buy an MT startup rather than build the tech internally? An existing partnership, as well as Iconic’s f...
2020-06-1230 min
SlatorPod#24 Puzzled Interpreters, Loc at Verizon, Surprising MT, Jobs VanishFlorian and Esther discuss the plight of the EU’s contract interpreters. While conference interpreting work has dried up, the ca. 3,000 contract interpreters, many of whom generated 100% of their income from the institutions, have been given a one-off payment to see them through the coronavirus pandemic. In a show of solidarity, however, staff interpreters created an emergency fund to help support their contract colleagues.Florian draws attention to the Slator Language Industry Job Index figures, showing a further drop from May to June, and highlights anecdotal evidence of localization job losses, including a LinkedIn-publicized cull in WeWork’s Globalization team. Esth...
2020-06-0528 min
SlatorPod#23 Netflix MTs Subs, RSI on Zoom, 9 Translation Markets, Defenders of FrenchIn this week’s episode, Florian and Esther discuss Netflix’s recent paper on sentence simplification and machine translation, destined to help improve the quality of machine-translated subtitles. But how will audiences react if simpler source sentences mean a lack of idioms and colloquialisms in foreign-language subtitles?The two talk about hyper-localized markets in the language industry and point out that a lot of demand is still local to an LSP’s home turf, limiting widespread industry consolidation. They discuss a few examples, from onsite dubbing and interpreting requirements in countries in Europe, to specific types of work that only exist...
2020-05-2926 min
SlatorPod#22 Japan’s Undervalued LSP, Australia and VRI, Translator Strike Contd.#22 Japan’s Undervalued LSP, Australia and VRI, Translator Strike Contd.In this week’s podcast, Florian shares news from Japan’s largest LSP, Honyaku Center, whose translation revenues shrunk by +4% to a still-substantial USD 75m year-on-year (and USD 107m for the whole company). He says that the listed LSP could be a steal for companies looking to acquire within the world’s third largest economy, as its market cap stands at a meagre USD 39m.Florian points to research that shows almost 70% of global clinical trials have been disrupted, and discussed the impact that may have for many of the world’s...
2020-05-2228 min
SlatorPod#21 Cash for Lilt and Plint, Presbyterian Loc, Game M&A, SlatorCon Goes RemoteDespite Esther’s laptop going into its own form of lockdown, Florian and Esther ploughed ahead to bring you this week’s language industry news. Florian highlights three finance-focused stories, as Plint, Lilt and Keywords Studios, three very different types of language service providers, all announced financing news. Firstly, Florian shares news from Sweden, where private equity firm Priveq took a majority stake in Plint, a subtitling-focused media localizer whose revenues have grown significantly from 2015 when they first signed Netflix as a customer. Florian also unpacks tech-enabled LSP Lilt’s fortunately-timed USD 25m funding raise involving big names such as Intel...
2020-05-1527 min
SlatorPod#20 thebigword’s email, Amazon Subs, Germany Says No, LSP Sales ToolFlorian and Esther pick out two of their favorite sales and biz dev insights from the recently launched Slator 2020 Language Industry Market Report: 400+ buyer job titles and 200+ LSP core and adjacent services.Florian gives an update on coronavirus’ industry impact and talks about the added factor of debt for some private equity backed LSPs. The two ponder LSP thebigword’s bold Word-pie initiative, which seeks to find LSPs running out of cash and offers to pay some continued income in exchange for onboarding clients.Esther gives an overview of Amazon Prime Video’s new research paper on quality estimation for subtit...
2020-05-0826 min
SlatorPod#19 Facebook Terminology, 2020 Report Launch, EU LSPs Struggle, AB5 HopeFlorian and Esther share highlights from the newly-released Slator 2020 Language Industry Market Report. The 55-page report features a wealth of insights and data to help LSPs drive strategy, sales and marketing and enable buyers to assess the vendor landscape. Esther talks about terminology management at scale after Facebook’s Uwe Muegge gave Slator an inside look at how his team is bringing consistency to the tech giant’s marketing terms. They’re using data and analytics, automation, and a robust terminology management process to soon bring the Facebook Marketing Dictionary onstream.Esther picks out a number of takeaways from the “European...
2020-05-0129 min
SlatorPod#18 DeepL Custom Hints, EU MDR Delay, Dub Studios Reopen, Google Live TranslationIn another lockdown episode, Florian discusses how LSPs are faring in the current climate. He also previews the results from the European Language Industry Survey, run by a group of industry associations. The survey found that LSPs plan to increase sales and marketing after Covid-19 and are not yet considering making layoffs. Among freelancers surveyed, only 16% said they have had to renegotiate rates. Esther talks about the coronavirus effect on the medical devices regulation (MDR) in Europe. Originally scheduled for May 2020, it has now been delayed by a year. LSPs hoping for a revenue boost linked to increased translation requirements...
2020-04-2423 min
SlatorPod#17 Startup Cuts, Super Agency Headwinds, Fixing Gender in NMT#17 Startup Cuts, Super Agency Headwinds, Fixing Gender in NMTFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry startup environment amid the coronavirus pandemic. As the language industry’s most heavily-funded startup, Unbabel, lays off a third of its staff, others may need to take similar measures to extend their runways given the uncertainty around capital raises in 2020. From startups to stalwarts: Florian shares news from TransPerfect and SDL, which both released financial results this week. TransPerfect had a strong Q1 2020 with 14% growth, while SDL delivered a solid performance across its three divisions — Language Services, Language Technologies, and Content Technologies — in 2019. Looking into summer...
2020-04-1726 min
SlatorPod#16 Polluted TMs, LSP Sells Masks, RWS as Proxy, Loc at Corona Test ManufacturerFlorian shares his own bizarre story of being pitched coronavirus masks by an LSP over LinkedIn. Esther discusses news that LSPs are suing the Translation Bureau of Canada (Attorney General of Canada), one of the world’s largest translation buyers. LSPs claim that the Translation Bureau’s translation memory is “flawed and polluted,” which is costing them time and money.Florian unpacks RWS’s latest half-year trading update to March 2020. Revenues were down by -1.8% from 2019, but overall, Life Sciences and some large enterprise IT were not doing too badly, suggesting these sectors may take less of a hit from Coronaviru...
2020-04-0929 min
SlatorPod#15 Loc Jobs Dry Up, Furloughs, LSP Crisis Management, Clinical Trial TranslationsFlorian highlights some stories picked up this week in SlatorSweep, Slator’s daily news aggregation service, including Keywords Studios’ decision to furlough 200 of its game testers employees in Dublin, and news from Germany of the government’s financial support package for freelancers and small businesses. Esther discusses the impact of Coronavirus on the Slator Language Industry Job Index, which fell more than three percentage points in April 2020. Job postings for localization and translation roles fell by as much as 20% and 40% on some job aggregation sites from the month before.With much attention focused on the race to find a Coronavirus vaccin...
2020-04-0325 min
SlatorPod#14 Flawed MT Review, TransPerfect v. Lionbridge, LSPs, Freelancers & CoronaFlorian and Esther share an update on the impact of Coronavirus on the language industry, zooming in on contingency plans communicated by SDL, ZOO Digital and Keywords Studios in their recent updates to investors, as well as the UK’s newly unveiled financial aid package for self-employed people.Esther unpacks a recent study on machine translation evaluation, published by leading academics from Zurich, Dublin City, Carnegie Mellon and Groningen universities. The study found that previous claims of ‘human parity’ are linked to flaws in the way that MT output is being evaluated. Florian discusses the ongoing TransPerfect-Lionbridge lawsuit, as a judge...
2020-03-2724 min
SlatorPod#13 Airbnb Loc, Continuity Despite COVID-19, CIOL Survey, Multilingual PodcastsIn this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther discuss the collective responses of more than 40 LSPs to the Coronavirus pandemic, from remote working to cloud-based services and business continuity plans. Esther talks about the results of a recent survey published by the CIOL — Chartered Institute of Linguists — which revealed a significant degree of dissatisfaction around translator and interpreter pay, but a healthy overall fondness of the profession. The two discuss localization at Airbnb, where the team has doubled the number of languages available to more than 60. Airbnb human-translated more than 100 million words in 2019, and used third-party machine translation for huge volume...
2020-03-2025 min
SlatorPod#12 Corona Affecting Language Industry, Loc at Fisher InvestmentsCapping off a hectic week with a Friday 13th special, Florian and Esther unpack the state of the language industry as Coronavirus goes global. From reports of demand surges for video remote interpreting and from some retail and e-commerce customers, to slowdowns in IT, e-learning and multimedia translation requests, how are the world’s language service providers faring in the face of the pandemic? The two discuss localization at asset and wealth management firm Fisher Investments, where the in-house team of five linguists, one project manager and one localization manager have shifted from outsourcing 70% of language tasks to handling more th...
2020-03-1314 min
SlatorPod#11 Corona Impact, Magic Translator, LSP Growth Ranking, AILIAEsther gives a short briefing on the AILIA conference she attended in Ottawa last week. The two discuss how the ongoing economic disruptions caused by the coronavirus are impacting the language industry and freelance linguists. They review the ranking of the fastest growing language service providers of 2019 and wonder about a recent RFP published by US Department of Homeland Security, which is looking to procure a quasi-magic translation and interpreting device for less than a million US-Dollars.Links to the stories discussed in this episode:The Slator 2020 Language Service Provider Indexhttps://slator.com/data-research/the-slator-2020-language-service-provider-index/US Coast Guard Opens...
2020-03-0624 min
SlatorPod#10 *Special Edition* Slator 2020 Language Service Provider IndexWho came in top? Who grew fastest? Who struggled? Florian and Esther discuss the newly released Slator 2020 Language Service Provider Index (LSPI), featuring 130 language service providers on first release. Breaking down the landscape of providers into four segments: Super Agencies, Leaders, Challengers and Boutiques, the two analyze some of the best performances across each of the categories, and look at factors that influenced growth.The fasting growing segment was the Leaders, at 14.85%, which outpaced growth across the three other segments through a mix of organic and acquisitive growth. Growth across the 130 LSPs who participated in the LSPI was around 15%. Stripping...
2020-02-2828 min
SlatorPod#9 Top 10 LSPs of 2019, Testing Google’s Interpreter Mode, Capita TI for Sale, Norway Terp RFPFlorian and Esther share a sneak peak of 2019’s LSP results ahead of publishing the Slator 2020 LSPI next week. Get an exclusive look at the top 10 language service providers by revenue in 2019, as Florian and Esther discuss language industry Super Agencies and Leaders, and reveal which media localizer made it into the top 10 for the first time. What could go wrong? As several US airports have taken to using Google Assistant Interpreter to help foreign travellers interact with airport staff, Florian live-tests the software on air with German to English! See how it fares (and whether Esther understands) as Florian tr...
2020-02-2124 min
SlatorPod#8 What's Trans-Adaptation? Kiwi M&A, Honyaku's Miss, India Data, Loc MeetupSlatorPod #8! Esther shares details about localization at US-based coaching app BetterUp, which works with enterprise customers across 62 countries and 30 languages. BetterUp’s Localization Program Manager, Ella Pętlicka spoke to Slator about localization operations at BetterUp including the Trans-Adaptation workflow — Florian and Esther discuss this and other workflows (e.g., transcreation and linguistic validation) that aim to deliver hyper locale-aware content. Florian runs through the latest financial results for Japan’s largest translation company, Honyaku Center, and unpacks Straker Translations’ recent acquisition of New Zealand’s oldest company, NZTC International. Esther talks about new subtitling standards in Finland that seek to promote...
2020-02-1427 min
SlatorPod#7 DeepL Breakthrough? UK Game Localizers Are Special, Mexican Dubbing, Straker FinancialsFlorian talks about DeepL’s claims of making yet another “breakthrough” in what they call “AI translation quality”. Esther unpacks a recent survey of UK gaming professionals by industry association ukie, which finds that localization workers in gaming are better educated, and less depressed and anxious than their counterparts in other functions. According to the survey, game loc professionals are also the most diverse bunch in gaming: if looked at in terms of gender, nationality and ethnicity. Esther and Florian also discuss the Slator Job Index, which rebounded from a dip in January to reach record highs, +9% above the benchmark of July 20...
2020-02-0727 min
SlatorPod#6 The TMS Question, 475M Stratus Deal, UK Manifesto, Slator LSP Index Heads-upSlatorPod #6! Florian Faes and Esther Bond unpack ASICS’ localization strategy and weigh up the benefits of centralized and local procurement strategies. The two also discuss when to use a vendor-agnostic (pureplay) translation management system (TMS), or one offered by an LSP. Florian analyzes the acquisition of US-based video interpreting provider Stratus Video by healthcare service giant AMN Healthcare for a whopping USD 475m, while Esther shares highlights from the UK Association of Translation Companies (UK ATC)’s newly published manifesto on public sector translation and interpreting. Links to the stories discussed in this episode:How ASICS Runs Localization: Insights on Vend...
2020-01-3129 min
SlatorPod#5 Interpreter Strike, Amazon Machine Dubbing, Super Agencies 2019 FinancialsSlatorPod #5! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss the 1,500-strong interpreter strike in the Netherlands. Florian talks about Amazon’s foray into automatic machine dubbing, which combines machine translation, text-to-speech, and audio rendering models. Esther unpacks the 2019 financial results for two Super Agencies — SDL and TransPerfect. TransPerfect’s acquisition of no less than seven media localizers in 2019 made it the most acquisitive LSP in 2019, just one of a number of highlights Esther shared from the recently released Slator 2019 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report.Links to the stories discussed in this episode:We’re On Strike: Dutch Linguists Oppose the Use of ‘...
2020-01-2428 min
SlatorPod#4 Lionbridge Lawsuit, HOOQ Media Localization, Translator Scams, CES and Translation GadgetSlatorPod #4! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss South-East Asia streaming joint-venture HOOQ and their localization efforts across a handful of Asian languages. The two also talk about Lionbridge being sued over earn-out payments by the founders of Geotext, a legal translation company they acquired in 2015. Translation scams continue to be a problem with fake translators impersonating real ones. Esther talks about how those scams work and what can be done about it. Finally, the two discuss the ubiquitous “translation earpieces” which apparently were a hot topic at the Consumer Electronic Shows (CES) in Las Vegas.Links to the stories discussed in t...
2020-01-1718 min
SlatorPod#3 Loc Meetup, EU 60M Awards, LSP Scorecard, 2020 Predictions, Q1 SpeakingSlatorPod #3! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss London localization meet-ups, the European Parliament’s giant Translation Directorate’s EUR 60m translation award, Amazon hiring new media localizers, and the scorecard of the handful of publicly listed language service providers. Esther talks about the January reading of the Slator Language Industry Job Index and Florian plucks Amazon’s new batch translation and two other stories featured in this week’s SlatorSweep. Then the two do some crystal ball gazing and make predictions for 2020 language industry M&A and startup funding as well as trends in MT, and talk about their Q1 conferen...
2020-01-1032 min
SlatorPod#2 Top 2019 Quotes, Kantan MT Acquisition, AB5 LawFlorian Faes and Esther Bond discuss the week’s language industry news.Featured this week: the top language industry quotes of 2019 including TransPerfect, BTI Studios, Unbabel’s venture capital backer, and Nike’s Global Localization Manager. Then, the two discuss California’s controversial AB5 gig worker bill, which the language industry is fighting tooth and nail, and Keyword Studio’s acquisition of machine translation provider KantanMT for EUR 7M.Links to the stories discussed in this episode:Top Language Industry Quotes of 2019https://slator.com/features/top-language-industry-quotes-of-2019/Capital Markets Day: What Keywords Studios Said About Game and Media Localizationhttps://slator.com/indust...
2019-12-2016 min
SlatorPod#1 Denmark, EU, RWS, Buyer PanelSlatorPod #1, the very first edition! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss the week’s language industry news. Featured this week: a giant interpreting contract gone wrong in Denmark; the EU’s translation test fail; RWS continues its growth streak posting yet another year of revenue and profit growth, and takeaways from SlatorCon Amsterdam’s enterprise localization panel.Links to the stories discussed in this first episode of SlatorPod:How Localization Is Run at Nike, Bose, and KAYAK: SlatorCon Panel Insightshttps://slator.com/slatorcon/how-localization-is-run-at-nike-bose-and-kayak-slatorcon-panel-insights/Serious Data Protection Violations: Denmark Terminates Giant EasyTranslate Contracthttps://slator.com/industry-news/serious-data-protection-violations-denmark-terminates-giant-easytranslate-contract/‘Unacceptable’ — Tempers Flare Over Europea...
2019-12-1314 min
Troublesome Terps35: Talking Business with Florian Faes of Slator.comSometimes it feels like language professionals forget that they are just that - professionals with a business "attached" to them. While being a wordsmith or having "a way with words" is perfectly fine, the economic elements must not be forgotten.
Enter Florian Faes, co-founder and managing director of slator.com, the language industries biggest (and only?) business focused one-stop-news-shop. The Troublesome Terps grill him on the origins of the website, business trends is seeing across the globe and why we should care in the first place.
Special Guest: Florian Faes.Links:Article: Inside...
2019-04-171h 12