There’s no simple answer to the question whether AI translation is faster, cheaper and better. AI can certainly make some translations faster and cheaper, but using AI on its own for translation isn’t necessarily a good idea. Sometimes a different solution without AI is better.
Here are a few key questions you should ask yourself first:
- What’s your goal and who do you want to reach with the translated text?
- Which language pair is involved?
- What’s the quality of the text that needs to be translated?
- Is it an update of a previously translated text?
What’s your goal and who do you want to reach with the translated text?
Texts generated by AI are generally more formal, not very creative and they lack nuance. Large Language Models are trained to recognise patterns in billions of words and to then reproduce these patterns in response to prompts or questions. The output is therefore very average.
Technical brochures and contracts
Texts that are generally formulated in the same way, have a similar style and which are available in abundance all over the world are often suitable for translating with AI. Examples are technical manuals or legal texts, like contracts.
Marketing and communications texts
You want to stand out from your competitors with your marketing and communications texts. You can’t do that if AI comes up with boring, uninspired texts full of clichés. What’s more, AI often misinterprets humour and can’t really handle double meanings and puns. That’s why it’s better not to use AI to translate marketing and communications texts. Human translators are creative, don’t stick rigidly to the original text, understand the target audience and, crucially, know the country or region the communications are intended for. They adjust their translation accordingly, something AI really isn’t capable of.
Specialist texts for a small or specific target audience
Specialist texts intended for a small or specific target audience are less suitable for AI translations. AI simply makes too many mistakes in this sort of text and post-editing takes so much time that using a human translator right from square one is faster and cheaper.
Which language pair is involved?
The language pair is crucial for the quality AI produces. Major business languages like English and German have extensive Large Language Models and AI developments have progressed much further than for minor business languages like Finnish or Slovenian. What’s more, AI isn’t so good at languages with a complicated structure or grammar. For these languages, the output is sometimes so bad that post-editing is more expensive than human translation.
What’s the quality of the text that needs to be translated?
AI translation works best with a well written text. This is another key aspect to translation. An AI translation of a text written by a non-native speaker is generally not good enough, because AI doesn’t understand these texts properly. The text isn’t natural and doesn’t fit in with the linguistic models used to train the AI. Human translators can see what a non-native author is trying to say and know how to translate that. So in this case, human translation is better, faster and cheaper.
Is it an update of a previously translated text?
We advise against using AI for updates of a previously translated text or texts that are very similar to texts you’ve had translated before. Once the text is in the translation database, the translation software retrieves the translation at the speed of light and also shows which bits haven’t yet been translated. In our experience, translating updates is always much cheaper than retranslating the whole text with AI and post-editing, and the consistency and style are much better.
Talk to your translators
Carefully consider which texts can and can’t be translated using AI. AI can be really useful, but sometimes it produces so much slop that simply having a human translator do the job is better, faster and cheaper. That’s why you should talk to your translators. They’re always happy to help you find the best, fastest and cheapest solution for your text or translation project.
