Expert Perspectives: How Humans and AI Will Shape the Future of Language Quality
Generative AI is making rapid inroads into the localization and language quality world. But how can we benefit from its power without losing the human touch?
In a recent panel discussion, we brought together two industry veterans to explore this urgent question:
- Marge Žordania heads the medical department and leads in-house AI initiatives at Luisa Translation Agency in Tallinn, Estonia.
- Damián Fernández is a freelance localization program manager with experience at leading firms such as Uber and Booking.com.
The big takeaway: AI can supercharge efficiency and productivity. But if we want high-quality communication across languages and cultures, humans have to lead the way.
Here are some key ideas that emerged from the conversation.
- People still outperform machines at critical aspects of language quality.
Human translators bring creativity, judgment, nuance, and emotional understanding that AI lacks. What’s more, people quickly update their knowledge to navigate linguistic and cultural change. AI struggles with new trends like the “girl math” phenomenon on TikTok if they weren’t part of its training data.
While AI language models can process massive datasets, they can’t match a person’s natural understanding of translation challenges. Skilled linguists can easily improvise and adapt without outside instructions. AI still requires extensive setup for similar results.
2. AI’s greatest value is to make humans more efficient and productive.
Today’s AI systems shine at summarizing texts, cleaning up content, and rephrasing messages for different audiences. By taking over such tasks, AI can free up humans to focus on higher-value work and complete projects faster.
For creative work, AI can accelerate brainstorming. Translators working on marketing campaigns or creative content can quickly generate new material as a starting point. With its vast processing power, AI can also simplify complex projects that used to require painstaking research.
- Generative AI will transform professional roles and workflows.
While human linguists still play a vital role, generative AI will change how they approach their work. More and more, translators will act as AI prompters and quality managers instead of translating from scratch.
Workflows will also change with AI. Translation, editing, and proofreading seem likely to fade away as separate phases of localization. Instead, one person will often handle the entire workflow. Future linguists will need to make quick, accurate judgments and take more responsibility for the quality of their own work.
- Professional toolkits will evolve beyond translation.
AI skills are becoming a basic requirement for translators and other language specialists. In the future, successful linguists will know how to prompt, fine-tune, and maximize the benefits of AI. They’ll treat it as one more tool to gather information, generate ideas, and boost their performance.
Language professionals also need new skills to complement AI systems. They’ll often need to check facts and verify AI-generated content for accuracy. Expertise in specialized fields like medicine and law will become even more valuable.
- Overreliance on AI spells trouble for language quality—but only if we let it.
More content already “sounds translated by AI.” If this becomes the norm, future language models may learn from lower-quality data. Human translators might lose essential skills, as future generations may not learn to translate without machines—or learn other languages at all.
How can we prevent this downward spiral? Some clients only need “good enough” translations, but language professionals need to balance efficiency with quality. We should educate clients about AI’s limitations and the role of human translators in delivering effective results. Above all, we shouldn’t settle for “keeping humans in the loop,” but create human-centered processes that put people in control.
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