What is AI Translation?
The term “AI translation” is exactly what it sounds like: the process of using machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) techniques to translate text from one language to another automatically. The goal is to preserve the meaning, context, and tone of the original content.
Sometimes this works really well, and sometimes it really doesn't . It all depends on the software you use.
But advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have made it easier than ever to get reliable translations for all your text-based assets at a low cost.
How AI Translation works
At the beginning of the AI translation process, colossal amounts of data are fed into the system to help the algorithms absorb patterns, structures, and the essence of language. Without data input, AI couldn't even translate “hello” to “hello!”
Then, deep learning techniques help the models understand the layers of linguistic subtleties and context. Finally, Natural Language Processing (NLP) applies techniques like part-of-speech tagging and syntactic parsing to ensure the meaning of the original text reverberates in every translated sentence.
Use cases for AI Translation
AI Translation tools can be used for different purposes, including translating websites, marketing materials, customer support tickets, subtitle translations, and even live translations during meetings or events. These tools are particularly useful for companies operating in global markets or working with international partners, as they can help break down language barriers, and help build relationships and facilitate communication.
Recent developments in neural machine translation
Neural machine translation (NMT) is, so far, the most accurate, versatile, and fluent of machine translation tools. It appeared around the middle of the 2010s and has become the best technology for translating languages.
There are a few things that affect how well a machine can translate languages:
Just like a person, the more the machine practices translating certain languages or topics, the better it gets. After enough practice, the NMT can translate faster, more accurately, and can easily learn to translate new languages.
Plus, AI translation technologies represent a $328 billion market in 2022, with projections indicating it could reach more than $1.3 trillion by 2029. The future of language translation technology is bright, and emphasizes what a significant opportunity it is for businesses to reduce costs and scale operations.
Benefits of AI Translation technology
Accuracy levels: How good is AI Translation?
Like any technology, AI translations aren’t always perfect and sometimes make errors or mistranslations. This is especially true with idiomatic expressions and cultural nuances, which can stump even the best human translators.
(For example, moosh bokhoradet in Persian literally translates to “a mouse should eat you” but means “little cutie patootie”. Go figure.)
That said, nothing in tech stays still for long.
AI translation tools have come a long way in recent years and have become increasingly reliable. When Google Translate introduced the NMT model in 2016, it improved accuracy overall by 34%. By 2021, a study by the UCLA Medical Center found that the accuracy of some language translations shot up to 94%, and Google Translate managed to maintain the general meaning in 82.5% of translations.
Just last fall (October 2023) Google launched Deep Aligner, a novel deep learning model for learning languages that has reduced the average translation error rate from 25% to 5%. And they’re only getting better as the market grows.
The speed of AI Translation
Gone are the days of poring over dictionaries and waiting for human translators to unveil the meaning behind every phrase. NMT functions as an programmed neural network, making translating complex sentences and entire documents a breeze.
While exact speed comparisons are hard to come by since the variety of languages, complexity, and length can be so far-ranging, AI translation tools can understandably work much faster than human translators. This makes AI translations a go-to solution for handling high-volume content translation—especially for multiple languages at once—when time and efficiency are critical.
AI also gets more refined and accurate over time, and therefore lightens the load on human editors by providing a better translation to start.
Cost savings from automating translation with AI
On average, human translation costs from $0.15 to $0.30 per word. Certain industries like retail or gaming can be cheaper, but translating more specialized medical or legal documents can cost upwards of $1.00 or more per word (Unbabel).
Some of the most popular machine translation engines like Google Cloud, Amazon, and Microsoft offer translation for as low as $0.000010 per character.
If you needed to translate a typical blog post—about 2,000 words or ~12,906 characters—you’d get an instant, very passable translation for $0.12 from a machine translator, and $300 from a human one.
Those are massive cost savings for any business. Plus, most machine translation tools now have post-editing options for a smidgeon more—where human editors review translations for accuracy, tone, and voice.
Why AI Translation still needs human help
While AI can churn out translations at lightning speed, it can sometimes trip over cultural nuances or miss the mark on context-specific interpretations or highly specialized content (like medical or legal documents). Not only that, but certain language pairs tend to be more accurate (usually English = other European languages) than others that have less demand and input data (NMT can struggle with Arabic and Chinese languages in particular).
This is where the dynamic duo of technology and human oversight becomes indispensable—and why, for some use cases (like moving to a market with less practice data for AI), you just can’t beat a human translator. Or at the very least, an editor who breathes.
People play a crucial role in fine-tuning and perfecting AI's output, ensuring that the translation isn't just accurate, but resonates on a human level. (And thankfully, as we’ve quelled similar fears in other industries, the need for experienced translators is only growing.)
Why and when to use AI Translation
AI has completely transformed the way companies interact with their audience (and vice versa). Customers expect highly personalized user journeys, and therefore, communicating with customers in their first language has become table stakes.
Here are some reasons why companies are increasingly turning to AI translation tools:
To translate large amounts of content in a short time
To translate repetitive content AI translations offer a more efficient and budget-friendly alternative to hiring professional human translators. These tools can process large volumes of text in seconds, allowing businesses to save both time and money on translation tasks without sacrificing quality.
To translate in real-time
With the ability to translate text and speech in real-time, AI translation tools enable companies to communicate effectively with people from diverse backgrounds. This creates better relationships, improves customer satisfaction, and expands the company's reach in global markets (win-win-win).
To scale your global projects or operations
As a company expands its operations and deals with more languages, AI translation tools can effortlessly scale to meet these growing needs. This scalability ensures businesses can continue to provide timely and accurate translations regardless of the size or complexity of their projects. A perfect use-case for live, global translation projects is chatbots, or training materials for new markets.
Curious to see how AI can scale your business in other ways? Learn how to become an AI native.
To have reliable translation accuracy—most of the time
AI translation technology is constantly evolving, with improvements in accuracy happening all the time. While it may not always be perfect, the technology has reached a level where it's often accurate enough for many business use cases.
And with that in mind, let’s turn to some of the best AI translation software at your disposal.
Best AI tools for translations
1. Copy.ai
Copy.ai is a generative AI platform that uses the latest language models to help businesses generate high-quality content in minutes. With Copy.ai, businesses can easily create compelling marketing or sales copy, product descriptions, and even translations in over 30 languages.
The platform uses advanced language models to generate copy that accurately reflects the tone and style of your brand’s content. The translation feature is no exception, with Copy.ai providing high-quality translations that can be used for a wide range of applications, like:
And more, which brings us to another key feature of Copy.ai: versatility.
Copy.ai can be used for many things, from generating marketing copy to writing blog posts and even creating personalized cold email sequences. Then, at the click of a button, this software can turn around and translate all of those assets into 30+ languages.
Finally, Copy.ai treats data privacy as a top priority.
Here are some of the features that make Copy.ai a great AI translation tool:
Pricing
Copy.ai has a forever-free plan, or you can get unlimited text generation starting at $36/month.
2. ChatGPT
ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot that uses natural language processing (NLP) to provide automated translations in a conversational format.
This tool can translate text into many different languages and, like other tools on this list, has gotten good at protecting the tone and style of your original text.
Here are some of ChatGPT's features:
One reason someone might be hesitant to use ChatGPT as an AI translation tool is that it’s probably not best for highly sensitive or confidential content. As a cloud-based service, ChatGPT isn’t suitable for organizations that require strict data privacy measures.
Pricing
ChatGPT is a free tool unless you want access to GPT-4. Then pricing starts at $20 per month per user.
3. Google Translate
Google Translate is a free online language translation service provided by Google. It uses machine learning algorithms to automatically translate text speech, images, and even web pages between any two of the over 130 languages it supports.
Google Translate can provide a basic understanding of text or speech in another language, but its reliability can vary depending on the complexity of the language and context. Google Translate is known to work best when translating simple, straightforward sentences.
However, it may struggle with more complex or nuanced foreign language,.
Some of Google Translate's features include:
Like we saw with ChatGPT, Google Translate does not guarantee the privacy or security of the translated data, which may be a concern for some users.
Pricing
Google Translate is a free tool, and there are no additional fees or charges associated with its use.
4. Bing Microsoft Translator
Microsoft Bing Translate is a user-facing translation dashboard provided by Microsoft as part of its Bing services to translate texts or entire web pages into different languages.
The tool can translate texts or entire web pages into the main languages you’d need for business, including English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, and many others.
The translation features of Microsoft Bing Translate include:
One reason someone might not want to use this tool as an AI translation tool is its potential limitations in accurately capturing cultural nuances and idiomatic expressions.
Pricing
Microsoft Bing Translate is a free machine translation tool provided by Microsoft.
5. DeepL
DeepL is a neural machine translation service that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide high-quality translations. It can translate texts between 31 languages, including Spanish, French, Japanese, and Chinese (simplified), with high accuracy.
The artificial intelligence translation tool uses neural networks that are trained on many millions of translated texts, and its researchers have made many improvements to the language pairsoverall neural network methodology, resulting in translations that are more fluent and natural-sounding.
The features of DeepL include:
Pricing
Pricing starts at $9/month for limited projects and scales with the amount of content you need translated.
6. Smartling
Smartling is a cloud-based translation technology and services company that provides language translation and content localization solutions. It’s headquartered in New York City and is known for its Translation Management System (TMS), which automates the process of localizing content.
Smartling can translate content into over 150 languages with the help of ai tools of AI and human translators. It can also integrate with content management systems (CMS) and other tools to provide a seamless and accurate translation ofprocess.
The features of Smartling include:
While pricing isn’t displayed on their website, that’s usually a signal that the plans are more expensive. This can be a prohibiting factor for smaller teams or startups who are on a tighter budget.
Pricing
You’ll need to contact the Smartling team to get a product demo.
7. Wordly
Wordly.ai is an AI-powered translation solution that provides live translations and captions for meetings and events in multiple languages.
It’s an interesting tool because the focus differs from others on this list. Rather than translating texts for web pages, this tool tries to improve in-person communication with real-time translations in 25+ languages.
Here are some of Wordly.ai's features:
Pricing
Wordly.ai charges by the hour and number of attendees in your session. At the lowest, you’ll spend $150/hour for up to 50 users. However, you can get additional discounts by purchasing larger bundles (all of which can be used for up to 12 months after purchase).
8. Unbabel
Unbabel can translate a wide variety of content, including websites, customer support tickets, and marketing materials. They use a combination of AI and human translators to provide fast and accurate translations in 30 languages.
Here are some of Unbabel's features:
One reason someone might not want to use Unbabel as an AI translation tool is that it is not a fully automated machine translation solution. While Unbabel's AI models provide fast and accurate translations, their translations are still reviewed by human translators to ensure quality.
Pricing
Unbabel has different packages you can choose from, but it requires a minimum commitment of $10,000.
9. Amazon Translate
Amazon Translate is a cloud-based machine translation service that uses AI to provide high-quality translations in over 75 languages.
Amazon Translate can translate a wide variety of content, including websites, mobile apps, and documents, with high accuracy and speed.
Here are some of Amazon Translate's features:
One reason someone might not want to use Amazon Translate as an AI translation tool is that, like other heavy hitters here, it may not be great for confidential content.
Amazon Translate is a cloud-based service, which means that content can be processed and stored on Amazon's servers. This could pose a security risk for some organizations.
Pricing
Amazon Translate's pricing varies based on the number of characters translated, with prices starting at $15 per million characters. Users can also try Amazon Translate for free for up to 12 months with AWS Free Tier (up to two million characters per month).
What is the best AI translation tool?
When it comes to AI translations, there are many options available on the market, but none come close to Copy.ai in terms of quality, versatility, and affordability.
Copy.ai is an AI-powered translation and marketing tool that excels at generating high-quality content in minutes, including translations in over 30 languages. With our software, you can rest assured that your translations will accurately reflect the intended tone and style of the content, thanks to the advanced language models used.
Plus, your data privacy is a top priority for our team, with robust security measures in place to protect your information.