Demand for machine translation expertise is rising: Insight from LocWorld48

The LocWorld48 conference was held in San Jose, California from November 1–3, bringing together localization industry leaders and professionals from around the world. Machine translation is increasingly playing a part in localization workflows, so naturally, we were there to meet other machine translation enthusiasts and learn about what’s new and trending about MT and localization.

One thing was clear—the landscape for MT in localization has become a wide one. There are now over 80 MT solutions available on the market, and it can get overwhelming to decide which ones are appropriate for your needs.

Different MT systems perform differently depending on the context. This is why we’re often reminded that there’s no “best” MT solution out there. A system that performs well in, say, Chinese language pairs might not do so as well with English to French or Portuguese. Or one company might offer MT solutions best suited for different domains like legal or financial. These are only a few examples. There are many other decisions that need to be made in deciding which MT solutions are right for you.

This means that the demand for MT expertise, instead of simply MT services, is on the rise. We need people who not only have deep knowledge of how MT works, but can also stay abreast of current developments in the wider MT business landscape—and not to toot our own horn, but that’s exactly what we at machinetranslation.com offer.

Machine translation has become a valuable and complex tool in the arsenal of localization experts. And as with all tools, it’s all about having the right people to use them in order to bring out the best results possible.