SlatorPod

Ben Faes, CEO of RWS, joins SlatorPod to talk about the markets’ perceptions of LSIs, the company’s AI strategy, and how RWS is repositioning itself for long-term growth.Ben positions RWS as a technology-led partner helping enterprises operate globally, from enabling multilingual communication to protecting intellectual property and improving market understanding.The CEO highlights the rapid acceleration of innovation and the democratization of AI, where individuals and companies can now build and deploy solutions at unprecedented speed. He argues that the real opportunity lies in using these capabilities more effectively, rather than applying them to low-value tasks.He describes the partnership with Cohere as a fundamental shift, with RWS integrating Cohere’s models into its Language Weaver Pro platform, moving beyond traditional, segment-based translation toward context-aware, LLM-driven solutions.Beyond translation, Ben sees strong growth in AI data services, especially in areas like cultural intelligence and multimodal training, where human expertise remains critical. Internally, RWS has reorganized into three divisions — Generate, Transform, and Protect — to better align with customer needs, buyer personas, and evolving use cases.Despite short-term uncertainty, Ben remains optimistic, noting that new AI-driven services and products account for a growing share of revenue and signal how quickly the market is evolving.

Jessica Powell, CEO of AudioShake, joins SlatorPod to talk about how AI-powered audio separation is making audio more usable for both human and machine workflows, and enabling new use cases across localization, broadcasting, and media production. Jessica emphasizes that early traction came from the music industry, particularly in areas like sync licensing and remixing. However, the company’s expansion into film and television happened organically as new use cases emerged.The CEO explains that AudioShake’s core technology uses source separation to break complex audio into individual components such as dialogue, music, and sound effects. She describes how this allows users to gain precise control over audio for tasks like editing, transcription, and multilingual dubbing.In localization, Jessica highlights how separating dialogue from music-and-effects (M&E) tracks enables both traditional dubbing and AI-assisted workflows, particularly for legacy content where original stems are unavailable.Beyond localization, Jessica underscores the importance of clean audio inputs for speech recognition systems. In noisy environments like sports broadcasts or unscripted content, separating dialogue before transcription significantly improves accuracy.Jessica also reflects on the broader AI landscape, noting that the rise of generative AI has increased awareness of audio as a critical modality. However, she distinguishes AudioShake’s work as non-generative, focused on extracting structure rather than creating new content.The CEO discusses the current funding environment in the Bay Area and how the investor narrative has evolved leading up to AudioShake’s late 2025 Series A.Looking ahead, Jessica points to real-time processing and copyright-compliant audio editing as key areas of innovation, as the company continues to expand its role in media and AI ecosystems.

Daniel Sebesta, a practicing Czech linguist and language-technology researcher, discusses AI translation advances and industry movers. He covers Google Translate’s new interactive features, ElevenLabs’ live translation partnerships, Walmart’s massive cost-cutting internal localization program, and key growth-hack strategies for scaling language-technology platforms.

Georg Ell, CEO of Phrase, returns to SlatorPod for round 3 to talk about how the language technology platform (LTP) is evolving amid the AI boom and the shifting dynamics in enterprise SaaS.Georg shares how Phrase has doubled down on a platform and ecosystem strategy that encourages customers to build solutions on top of the LTP’s system rather than forcing them into a closed system.The CEO addresses the broader AI narrative affecting SaaS companies and explains that investor uncertainty about long-term software value has created anxiety across the sector.Georg argues that the AI boom has triggered a “build vs buy” debate inside many enterprises, with engineering teams experimenting with internal solutions. He explains how the gap between building a demo versus running a reliable, scalable system is where most internal projects fail.Georg notes that core AI translation quality improvements seem to be plateauing, but AI continues to significantly enhance the layers surrounding translation. He highlights improvements in context handling, evaluation, automated post-editing, and orchestration that allow companies to translate more content at lower human review rates.The CEO says localization must move beyond cost reduction narratives and instead focus on business outcomes such as hiring efficiency, support performance, and revenue metrics. Georg predicts 2026 will bring more production-grade AI applications, including personalization, multimodal content, and automation across the enterprise. He believes language technology will be framed as content adaptation and delivery rather than simply translation.

Daphne Tay, Founder and CEO of Bluente, joins SlatorPod to talk about building an AI-powered document translation platform that goes beyond text and tackles the complexities of formatting at scale.Daphne explains that formatting challenges vary significantly across file types, from scanned PDFs to multi-column layouts and complex graphics, requiring deep technical handling of document structures.The CEO points to legal and financial services as core verticals, citing the example of investment banking teams uploading hundreds of pages overnight to meet tight deal deadlines. Daphne discusses how large language models have accelerated translation quality and increased market openness to AI adoption, especially among legal professionals who want to reduce time spent on non-billable translation tasks.She highlights that human reviewers still remain essential for court filings, arbitration, and high-stakes documents requiring certification or final sign-off.Daphne shares that Bluente raised funding to expand internationally, increase brand visibility, and partner with investors experienced in scaling B2B SaaS and AI businesses.The pod wraps with Daphne outlining a forthcoming feature that enables temporary translation memory, allowing only recently edited sections of a document to be retranslated while preserving previously approved text.

Slator’s Head of Research Anna Wyndham joins Florian on the pod to discuss Slator’s new Pro Guide: Growth Hacks for Language Technology Platforms, describing it as a practical playbook for turning strong AI products into scalable revenue.Florian highlights ElevenLabs’ USD 500m raise at an USD 11bn valuation and Synthesia’s USD 200m round as evidence that investor appetite for voice AI is accelerating rapidly. Florian connects that funding momentum to product launches, including ElevenLab’s Expressive Mode and YouTube’s expanding AI dubbing push.The duo then reviews YouTube’s AI dubbing in German and Spanish, finding the intelligibility and naturalness impressive, but rhythm and intonation still mirroring the English source language too closely.Anna turns to new academic research arguing that current text-to-speech evaluation methods under-test real-world deployment factors such as long-form consistency, punctuation handling, and robustness across messy inputs.Anna reports that Appen delivered double-digit revenue growth and an EBITDA turnaround in Q4 FY25, driven by a higher share of generative AI projects and strong momentum in China.Florian closes by touching on prompt injection issues in AI translation tools, RWS’s return to growth, and Lionbridge’s ownership transition.

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the past few weeks, starting with senior hires in revenue and operations at DeepL and what this signals about the LTP’s next phase.The duo then turns to new data from AI labs and hyperscalers, where Florian highlights findings from Anthropic’s research showing AI is settling into a support role rather than full automation, with usage concentrated around review and validation, and humans remaining firmly in the loop.On the consumer side, Esther points to Microsoft Copilot data showing translation and language learning as one of the most common everyday AI use cases. Florian flags Adobe’s new “Translate this PDF” feature, where formatting was the main issue rather than translation accuracy.The conversation then shifts to infrastructure, where Florian emphasizes how NVIDIA is positioning itself at the center of real-time multilingual voice ecosystems by open-sourcing models while driving demand for its hardware.The duo unpacks OpenAI’s quiet launch of ChatGPT Translate. Esther notes that reactions have been mixed, with many seeing the interface as basic, while Florian stresses the strategic importance of the move. Then the two disagree on whether or not the AI’s default prompt to make the translation sound “more fluent” makes any sense.Esther walks through recent M&A activity and funding rounds, highlighting acquisitions in Europe and the US alongside major raises by Synthesia, Deepgram, and reportedly ElevenLabs.Florian concludes with a look at an S-1 filing by a tiny company, using it as an example of how the US capital markets accommodate everything from billion-dollar AI firms to survival-stage experiments.

JC Penet, Reader in Translation Industry Studies at Newcastle University, and Joss Moorkens, Associate Professor at DCU, join SlatorPod to talk about the new open-access book Teaching translation in the age of generative AI: New paradigm, new learning?The duo explains how large language models (LLMs) have a different impact than earlier machine translation breakthroughs as they generate human-like text, respond to prompts, and adapt output to context. Public hype around LLMs has affected demand for some translators and fueled misconceptions around the value of studying translation. Although, JC and Joss stress that translation education must adapt.JC outlines how students need to assess whether output is appropriate for purpose, audience, risk, and context. This places greater importance on skills such as selection, evaluation, and effective prompting, while still relying on core linguistic and cultural competence.Joss adds that this shift reflects real industry practice, where different content types already receive different levels of automation and human involvement. Drawing on healthcare research, he highlights how AI can outperform traditional workflows in some contexts but fail badly in others, especially across languages with uneven data coverage.Joss also highlights ethical blind spots that arise when performance metrics dominate decision-making. He describes a “triple bottom line” approach that weighs people, planet, and performance equally.On fears of de-skilling, JC argues that excluding AI from classrooms poses a greater risk. Without guided engagement, students may use tools uncritically or fail to develop AI literacy altogether. Joss points to initiatives such as LT-LiDER, an Erasmus+ project designed to build AI literacy among educators.Looking ahead, the duo contends that studying languages and translation remains valuable because it develops deep reading, critical thinking, intercultural awareness, and adaptability.

In the 2025 year-end episode of SlatorPod, hosts Florian Faes and Esther Bond reflect on a year defined by rapid AI investment, shifting policy, and structural change across the language industry.Esther opens the year-in-review by highlighting January’s twin funding milestones in the language AI and product space. Florian follows with February, which saw hyperscalers and AI labs release data highly relevant to the way AI translation is being used.March, April, and May saw major developments both on the regulatory side and in terms of bolt-on acquisition deals.Past the mid-year point, OpenAI’s decision to hire a localization manager was what grabbed the industry’s collective attention. The AI lab’s decision contrasted with September’s news, which saw the closure of one of the world’s most recognized academic programs for localization.The year closed on publicly listed LSIs releasing mixed results and major announcements in AI translation for literature and live speech translation rollouts.The duo closes with 2026 predictions!

Josh Miller and Christopher Antunes, Co-Founders and co-CEOs of 3Play Media, join SlatorPod to talk about the company’s trajectory as a leading language solutions integrator (LSI) in multilingual video accessibility.The duo explains how the two met at MIT, where an early challenge from OpenCourseWare revealed that captioning thousands of technical videos was financially impossible, leading to the company’s founding, where they developed proprietary tooling, leveraged AI, and incorporated expert-in-the-loop solutions.Josh describes how their platform evolved into a dual system supporting both customers and large-scale operations. Chris notes that the LSI now serves media and entertainment, higher education, e-learning, and corporate clients.Chris explains that three major trends — the European Accessibility Act (EAA), advancements in voice technology, and the rise of live events — drove their expansion into global localization. The co-CEOs detail their dubbing journey, noting rapid learning over the last 18 months and the emergence of a big mid-tier market between high-end theatrical dubbing and low-cost AI-only output.Josh explains how the EAA is pushing companies to prepare for large columns of multilingual captioning and audio description. He notes that interpretations of the law still vary, but major media firms are already investing to avoid disruption. The duo shares findings from their 2025 State of ASR Report, where they found that accuracy initially improved sharply with generative models but has now plateaued.Looking to the future, the co-CEOs are working on shifting their model to incorporate AI-generated scores and analytics, allowing customers to decide on the level of expert intervention.