SlatorPod

John Worne, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Linguists ( CIOL ), joins SlatorPod to discuss CIOL’s mission to support and promote language professionals and the value of languages for the public good through professional standards, advocacy, and intercultural understanding. John highlights the challenges of applying AI in high-stakes contexts like court interpreting. He references the UK House of...

Luke Innes, CEO of Creative Translation , joins SlatorPod to discuss how the global transcreation agency puts “human at the heart of the process” of multilingual branding by combining creativity, cultural insight, and strategic use of AI . Luke recounts his unconventional entry into the language services industry, charting a path from his roots in design to leading Creative Translation. Despite ea...

Florian 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 S...

Joe Corkery, MD, CEO and Co-Founder of Jaide Health , joins SlatorPod to discuss how Jaide Health is driving medical interpreting and translation with AI , bridging communication gaps for limited English proficiency ( LEP ) patients and improving healthcare accessibility. With a background in computer science, medicine, and AI product leadership at Google, Joe co-founded Jaide Health with Julie Wi...

Anna Albinsson, CEO of Gridly , joins SlatorPod to talk about the company’s evolution into a content operations platform, its expansion beyond gaming, and the increasing role of AI in localization. Anna discusses Gridly ’s transition from a niche CMS for gaming companies into a comprehensive content operations platform. Initially built by game developers for game developers, the company is now exp...

In response to President Trump’s executive order designating English as the official language of the US , SlatorPod gathered Dipak Patel, CEO of GLOBO , and Peter Argondizzo, CEO of Argo Translation , to discuss its implications for the US language industry. The discussion highlighted that language access has long been a key part of US policy, particularly in healthcare, education, and legal servi...

Peter Reynolds , CEO of memoQ , joins SlatoPod to talk about the impact of AI on translation technology and how memoQ is enhancing its tools to meet the changing needs of enterprises, LSPs, and translators. Discussing AI, Peter recounts memoQ's response to the rise of generative AI, leading to the launch of memoQ AGT (Adaptive Generative Translation). By providing contextual data to LLMs, the...

Florian 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...

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, where they reviewed ElevenLabs ’ AI dubbing, on the back of a USD 3bn+ valuation . While they found the translation quality was strong, minor timing issues and lack of lip-syncing meant the output felt slightly unnatural. Esther then provided an update on M&A activity, where UK-based XTM International acquired US-based Transife...

Bryan Forrester , Co-founder and CEO of Boostlingo , returns to SlatorPod for round 2 to talk about the company’s growth, the US interpreting market, and the evolving role of AI . Bryan shares how the company has tripled in size since he last appeared on the pod , driven by strategic acquisitions, including VoiceBoxer and Interpreter Intelligence , and a rebranding effort to unify its product port...

Florian 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 sp...

In the 2024 year-end episode of SlatorPod, hosts Florian Faes and Esther Bond, along with guest Anna Wyndham, explore pivotal language industry trends from the past year and predictions for 2025. First, the language industry news of the week, with LXT’s acquisition of clickworker , which aims to expand its AI data capabilities and potentially double revenues by 2025. Meanwhile, Esther shares how E...

Katharine Allen, Director of Language Industry Learning at Boostlingo , and Dr. Bill Rivers, Principal at WP Rivers & Associates, join SlatorPod to discuss the challenges and opportunities AI brings to interpreting . Both are founding members of the Interpreting SAFE AI Task Force , which aims to guide the responsible use of AI in language services. Allen describes AI as a double-edged sword —...

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, where they explore how AI is influencing content creation and translation, noting its progress and limitations.  A recent study on GPT-4 revealed its ability to match junior translators but lag behind experienced professionals, particularly in nuanced contexts. Florian highlights the public’s heightened perception of the risks of A...

Charles Campbell , President of tbo. , returns to SlatorPod for round 2 to talk about his efforts to unite and professionalize the language services industry in Latin America and the Caribbean through the association Juntos . Founded just before the pandemic, Juntos aims to raise standards in translation, interpreting, and localization by fostering collaboration, mentoring, and quality benchmarkin...

Florian 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, demonstra...

Stuart Green, CEO of ZOO Digital (ZOO), joins SlatorPod to discuss the role of AI in media localization and the essential role human linguists will continue to play in producing high-authenticity content in multiple languages. A technologist by training, Stuart recounts his entry into the media localization industry and how ZOO transitioned from DVD production to leading-edge solutions in multilin...

Christian Elongue, Managing Director of Ghana-based consulting firm and language service provider (LSP) Kabod Group , joins SlatorPod to share his insights into the African language services landscape, recounting his journey into language advocacy. Christian describes Kabod Group as a dual-purpose organization, offering translation services primarily to nonprofit clients, while advancing social im...

Sijie Wei, Co-CEO of language services, technology, and game localization specialist EC Innovations ( ECI ), joins SlatorPod to talk about his new role as co-CEO and leading one of Asia’s largest LSPs with revenues exceeding USD 50m in 2023 . Sijie shares how ECI, initially focused on helping Western blue-chip firms enter China, expanded to assisting Chinese tech giants like Tencent and ByteDance...

Florian 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...

Gregor and Olivera Rosulnik, Co-founders of Slovenia-based language service provider GORR , join SlatorPod to discuss their journey into the language industry, the challenges they faced, and the strategies they've employed to grow their business. Gregor and Olivera share how they initially targeted Slovenian companies, especially startups and scaleups, and after adjusting their focus, expande...

Shamus 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,...

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, where they give their impressions from SlatorCon Silicon Valley and touch upon the findings from the 2024 ALC Industry Survey. In a significant funding update, Esther reports that Smartcat raised USD 43m in a Series C round, bringing their total funding to USD 70m. This funding will support product innovation in AI translation and...

George Bara, Founder and Chief Strategist of tech company Zetta Cloud , joins SlatorPod to talk about the nuances of AI technology and its applications in text analytics and multilingual data processing. George shares insights from his career journey, including his tenure at SDL and RWS before co-founding Zetta Cloud, which focuses on building small, specialized language models rather than large,...

Dr. Christopher Kurz , Head of Translation Management at wind turbine manufacturer ENERCON , joins SlatorPod to talk about the development of ISO 5060 , a new standard focused on the evaluation of translation output. Christopher discusses how his involvement with ISO standards since 2011, coupled with his experience in translation quality management, led him to spearhead the creation of ISO 5060 i...