#215 Humanless LSP as a Fun Weekend Project

SlatorPod

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, giving a recap of SlatorCon London and exploring some use cases from the Slator Pro Guide: Language AI for Consumers.

Florian talks about Andrew Ng's recent project on agentic machine translation, which involves using large language models (LLMs) to create a virtual language service provider (LSP).

The duo touch on Apple's recent Worldwide Developer Conference, where Apple Watch is set to get a translation widget and also recently announced a new translation API.

Florian shares RWS's half-year financial results, where despite declines in revenue, the company's stock rose by 20%, likely due to investor perception of AI-enabled services and new product offerings like Evolve and HAI gaining traction.

Esther talks about DeepL's USD 300m funding round, which valued the company at USD 2bn, a testament to the growing interest in AI models. She also covers Unbabel's launch of TowerLLM, which claims to outperform competitors like Google Translate and DeepL.

In Esther’s M&A corner, Keywords Studios eyes a GBP 2.2bn deal from Swedish private equity firm EQT, Melbourne LSP Ethnolink buys Sydney-based competitor Language Professionals, and ZOO Digital acquires Italian dubbing partner LogoSound.

Esther gives a nod to the positive financial performances of companies like ZOO Digital and AMN's language services division, with more mixed results for Straker.

Kapitel

1. Intro and Agenda (00:00:00)

2. AI Agentic Machine Translation (00:05:30)

3. Apple's Translation Updates (00:12:23)

4. RWS' Financial Update and AI Strategy (00:14:40)

5. DeepL Now Double Unicorn with Latest Funding (00:20:37)

6. Unbabel Launches TowerLLM (00:24:23)

7. Keywords Studios' Potential Sale (00:25:46)

8. M&A Deals in Australia and Italy (00:28:23)

9. ZOO Digital's Revenue Back Up (00:29:10)

10. AMN's Language Services Performs Well (00:30:29)

11. Straker Reports Mixed Results (00:31:41)