Poll: What matters most for staying competitive in the AI-shaped translation market? Uwekaji wa uzi: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "What matters most for staying competitive in the AI-shaped translation market?".
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Some of the above and most of all be patient and wait for the hype to die down…
| | | | Oscar Núñez Alfaro 
Kostarika
Local time: 09:26
Mwanachama(Oct 2026)
Kiingereza hadi Kihispania
+ ...
| Many options are excellent to keep yourself competitive. | Oct 5, 2025 |
To be honest, what makes me getting a proper income to make a living in the language profession is my excellent relationship with my clients, which is beyond AI. One of my students uses ChatGPT in my Spanish classes, and she has improved a lot in her language learning process. So, I cannot reject how powerful AI tools are.
On the other hand, when we talk about difficult terms and cultural aspects, my services flourishes because AI cannot give her the context and the explanations tha... See more To be honest, what makes me getting a proper income to make a living in the language profession is my excellent relationship with my clients, which is beyond AI. One of my students uses ChatGPT in my Spanish classes, and she has improved a lot in her language learning process. So, I cannot reject how powerful AI tools are.
On the other hand, when we talk about difficult terms and cultural aspects, my services flourishes because AI cannot give her the context and the explanations that she really wants to. Besides, I like to make my students reflect about the text and do not only be comfortable with the AI translation.
Language learning, for those who are language tutors or teachers, is an excellent mental exercise and require much effort and discipline to be able to understand another language one day. Students cannot simply avoid that part, they need training.
Sorry for talking more about teaching than translation, but both markets are living similar situations.
[Editado a las 2025-10-05 21:52 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Zea_Mays
Utaliano/Italia
Local time: 17:26
Kiingereza hadi Kijerumani
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What else?
(Boring polls that try to frame people's perception of reality. Don't tap into the trap.)
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Justin Peterson
Uhispania
Local time: 17:26
Kihispania hadi Kiingereza
+ ...
| Selling proofreading and revisions | Oct 6, 2025 |
AI is here to stay, the translating tools are excellent, and they're only going to get better.
The hype is not going to die down.
In fact, I think we're probably underestimating how huge the impact of AI is going to be, in our sector, and every other one. That is, it's not hype. It's the recognition of a real revolution.
There's no going back to totally human translations. That era is over.
It's all about selling Quality Control now, and add... See more AI is here to stay, the translating tools are excellent, and they're only going to get better.
The hype is not going to die down.
In fact, I think we're probably underestimating how huge the impact of AI is going to be, in our sector, and every other one. That is, it's not hype. It's the recognition of a real revolution.
There's no going back to totally human translations. That era is over.
It's all about selling Quality Control now, and adding human touches, flourishes and refinements to AI texts to deliver value ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Ubelgiji
Local time: 17:26
Mwanachama(2020)
Kifaransa hadi Kidaji
+ ...
Justin Peterson wrote:
AI is here to stay, the translating tools are excellent, and they're only going to get better.
Define "excellent". I think they are surprisingly good from a layman's perspective, but if you are talking about professional quality, then they are okayish at best.
Will they get better? Perhaps, perhaps not. Some experts say the current LLM approach is a dead end.
Justin Peterson wrote:
The hype is not going to die down.
AI is here to stay, I agree, but I believe the hype in translation will calm down. AI simply doesn't live up, yet, to its overhyped promises in translation.
Justin Peterson wrote:
It's all about selling Quality Control now, and adding human touches, flourishes and refinements to AI texts to deliver value
So why do I keep receiving a fair amount of human translation requests then? Even today I received a 6K translation request with the specific demand of not using machine translation (demanded by the end customer). MT and AI bots have been here for years now, so it surely won't be because the end customer doesn't know better. My bet is that they are quality oriented, like still many other companies out there.
And for the record: machine translation in Dutch is quite good (thank you, decades of bilingual and trilingual training material).
| | | | Justin Peterson
Uhispania
Local time: 17:26
Kihispania hadi Kiingereza
+ ...
| If you're still getting "traditional" translation requests, I'm glad for you... | Oct 6, 2025 |
If you're still getting lots of requests, I'm glad for you, sincerely
In Spain, the "traditional" translation profession is disappearing
J
Lieven Malaise wrote:
Justin Peterson wrote:
AI is here to stay, the translating tools are excellent, and they're only going to get better.
Define "excellent". I think they are surprisingly good from a layman's perspective, but if you are talking about professional quality, then they are okayish at best.
Will they get better? Perhaps, perhaps not. Some experts say the current LLM approach is a dead end.
Justin Peterson wrote:
The hype is not going to die down.
AI is here to stay, I agree, but I believe the hype in translation will calm down. AI simply doesn't live up, yet, to its overhyped promises in translation.
Justin Peterson wrote:
It's all about selling Quality Control now, and adding human touches, flourishes and refinements to AI texts to deliver value
So why do I keep receiving a fair amount of human translation requests then? Even today I received a 6K translation request with the specific demand of not using machine translation (demanded by the end customer). MT and AI bots have been here for years now, so it surely won't be because the end customer doesn't know better. My bet is that they are quality oriented, like still many other companies out there.
And for the record: machine translation in Dutch is quite good (thank you, decades of bilingual and trilingual training material).
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Ubelgiji
Local time: 17:26
Mwanachama(2020)
Kifaransa hadi Kidaji
+ ...
Justin Peterson wrote:
In Spain, the "traditional" translation profession is disappearing
What's that based upon? Do you have hard facts apart from your own experience? Of course MTPE is increasingly being offered, in Belgium also, but why would that mean that conventional translation will disappear completely?
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Justin Peterson
Uhispania
Local time: 17:26
Kihispania hadi Kiingereza
+ ...
Many clients have simply disappeared
multiple colleagues have left the profession
agencies I worked with for years have closed, etc.
Perhaps not scientific evidence, but ... "hard" : /
Why would clients abandon traditional translation?
Simple: to reduce costs.
Lieven Malaise wrote:
Justin Peterson wrote:
In Spain, the "traditional" translation profession is disappearing
What's that based upon? Do you have hard facts apart from your own experience? Of course MTPE is increasingly being offered, in Belgium also, but why would that mean that conventional translation will disappear completely?
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Ubelgiji
Local time: 17:26
Mwanachama(2020)
Kifaransa hadi Kidaji
+ ...
Justin Peterson wrote:
Why would clients abandon traditional translation?
Simple: to reduce costs.
Well, sure, but abandoning traditional translation and translation that is disappearing are not one and the same. I have a few customers that only offer me MTPE assignments, a majority that offers me both MTPE and human translations and a another few that still offer me human translations only. That's not exactly "disappearing" after all these years of doom talk about AI.
And why would Spain be worse than any other country in terms of "disappearing" translation?
| | | | Daryo
Local time: 16:26
Kiserbia hadi Kiingereza
+ ...
Justin Peterson wrote:
AI is here to stay, the translating tools are excellent, and they're only going to get better.
The hype is not going to die down.
In fact, I think we're probably underestimating how huge the impact of AI is going to be, in our sector, and every other one. That is, it's not hype. It's the recognition of a real revolution.
There's no going back to totally human translations. That era is over.
It's all about selling Quality Control now, and adding human touches, flourishes and refinements to AI texts to deliver value
You've been overdosing of AI hype lately?
| | | | Sarah Elizab (X)
Utaliano/Italia
Local time: 17:26
Kitaliano hadi Kiingereza
| quality and at least some degree of circumstantial luck | Oct 8, 2025 |
Like Justin, I also know many people whose work dried up at some point in the past couple years and have heard many, many more first-person stories of same. These are not people 'believing the hype': they are experiencing a reality that clearly, obviously, unsurprisingly not everyone is experiencing across the board. Individual circumstances obviously differ. But in the cases I know of, we are talking about well-connected people who know how to adapt, be proactive and put themselves out there. I... See more Like Justin, I also know many people whose work dried up at some point in the past couple years and have heard many, many more first-person stories of same. These are not people 'believing the hype': they are experiencing a reality that clearly, obviously, unsurprisingly not everyone is experiencing across the board. Individual circumstances obviously differ. But in the cases I know of, we are talking about well-connected people who know how to adapt, be proactive and put themselves out there. I think that AI does not affect everyone's work areas in the same way. It has a lot (everything?) to do with circumstances, and there are so many factors at play, differing for every single individual.
I know of three former art-world clients who have fully embraced AI for their translations. It remains to be seen whether they will go back to human translation, but at least for now they do not think there is any need and they are no longer a source of translation work for anyone. Two of them are well-placed to judge.
Speaking for myself, I have more translation work than I can handle and so cannot accept everything offered. But there was a period last winter, and then a shorter one last spring, when my work had dried up, and there was no way of knowing whether it would pick up again. It did, and in the meantime I've found, by experimenting with what AI can do with the kinds of texts I translate, that I'm 'safe'. And I've actually picked up several new clients.
But it's a niche field where quality is paramount, AI cannot fully handle it and enough clients are aware of this to keep my calendar full. My experimentation with AI has shown me, however, that there are plenty of text types that it actually can handle, with very minimal 'clean up'. From what I understand, a lot of people worked on those kinds of texts.
[Edited at 2025-10-08 07:05 GMT]
[Edited at 2025-10-08 07:06 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Lingua 5B
Bosnyia na Hezegovina
Local time: 17:26
Kiingereza hadi Kifaransa
+ ...
| Field, quality | Oct 8, 2025 |
So in medicine/health care, quality is not paramount? In my language pair, they only use MTPE in medical field, and use completely inexperienced beginner reviewers, because they need to meet the 1 cent per word budget. I guess med/pharma is not a field where quality matters.
[Edited at 2025-10-08 09:46 GMT]
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