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SlatorPod is the weekly language industry podcast where we discuss the most important news and trends in translation, localization, interpreting, and language AI. Brought to you by Slator.com.
264 Episodes
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Slator’s Senior Research Analyst Alex Edwards joins Esther and Florian on the pod to discuss ElevenLabs’ move from a pure-play language technology platform (LTP) to becoming a language solutions integrator (LSI) by adding a managed service offering. He outlines that the LSI will now offer managed services such as dubbing, transcription, and subtitling, hiring in-house linguists and vendor managers, while charging about USD 22 per minute for dubbing. Florian then turns to YouTube’s rollout of ...
Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the past few weeks, beginning with a recap of SlatorCon Silicon Valley 2025, where the duo noted strong localization buyer and user turnout, and tech-focused discussions across presentations and panels. One key highlight was Cohere’s well-timed launch of Command A Translate, which allowed Kelly Marchisio to share details on building multilingual LLMs. Esther notes that Cohere’s multilingual models focus on high-quality coverage of about...
Dipak Patel, CEO of GLOBO, joins SlatorPod to talk about his journey into language services and the challenges and opportunities of integrating AI into healthcare communication. Dipak explains that his career began in consulting and private equity, but a personal experience with his mother’s healthcare highlighted the importance of interpretation services and led him to GLOBO. The CEO emphasizes that since 2020, GLOBO has doubled down on healthcare, embraced AI and large language models, and ...
Gayatri Shahane, Founder and CEO of early-stage startup Naitiv, joins SlatorPod to talk about her entrepreneurial journey and building a conversational AI tool for business communication. Gayatri describes how Naitiv’s conversational AI agent is built as a desktop app to manage latency and audio challenges in live interpretation. She explains that it supports different conversation modes for casual and professional contexts, with a voice orchestration engine developed to handle turn-taking, s...
Rick Woyde, Co-Founder of Pairaphrase, joins SlatorPod to talk about his entrepreneurial journey co-founding a language technology platform (LTP) focused on simplicity and accessibility. Rick describes identifying early adoption of Google Translate among businesses and spotting a gap for a platform that served both non-technical users and professionals without the complexity of traditional LTP tools. The Co-Founder highlights that Pairaphrase now serves diverse clients, from US schools transl...
Slator’s Head of Research Anna Wyndham joins Florian on the pod to discuss Microsoft’s research paper “Working with AI: Measuring the Occupational Implications of Generative AI”, a study that stirred significant debate across social media. The paper, based on 200,000 anonymized Microsoft Copilot interactions, aims to understand what tasks people ask AI to perform and how effectively those tasks are completed. Pairing this with the US O*NET database of occupational tasks, researchers created a...
Martina Russo, CEO of The Action Sports Translator (TAST), joins SlatorPod to talk about her journey from being a multilingual outdoor sports enthusiast to leading a language solutions integrator dedicated exclusively to action and outdoor sports. Martina describes how each action sport has unique subcultures and terminology, from mountain biking’s multiple disciplines to climbing’s variety of techniques and jargon. Even within the same sport, regional language differences present challenges....
Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, including the newly released Slator 2025 Language AI 50 Under 50, showcasing fifty of the most innovative and fast-growing language AI startups founded within the past fifty months. The duo explain how Slator sifted through hundreds of companies, assessing innovation, practical solutions to real buyer problems, and strong market positioning. The final fifty span five categories: multilingual video and audio, live speech transl...
Florian and Esther catch up on a few weeks’ worth of language industry news with a surge of developments in speech translation. Apple’s on-device translation debuts in apps like iMessage and FaceTime, and OpenAI enhances ChatGPT‘s Advanced Voice Mode with more human-like interactions and real-time translation. Florian unpacks YouTube’s broad rollout of AI dubbing for 80 million creators in 20 languages, where he trials German and finds robotic voices, bad translations, and no editing options,...
Davit Baghdasaryan, Co-Founder & CEO of Krisp, joins SlatorPod to talk about the platform’s journey from a noise cancellation tool to a comprehensive voice productivity solution. Originally built to eliminate background noise during calls, Krisp has expanded into real-time accent conversion, speech translation, agent assistance, and note-taking — technologies being rapidly adopted in enterprise environments. The company’s accent conversion is now deployed by tens of thousands of call cent...
Stefaan van der Jeught, Professor of EU Constitutional Law at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and a Press Officer at the Court of Justice of the European Union, joins SlatorPod to talk about the complex relationship between language and law in the EU. Stefaan outlines the historical evolution of EU language policy, from French-only founding treaties to the gradual inclusion of all member state languages. Despite formal equality, institutions largely define their own internal language regimes, lea...
Tom Elias Hanna, COO of Hanna Interpreting Services (Hanna), joins SlatorPod to talk about how a family-run interpreting initiative grew into a national language solutions integrator (LSI). Tom explained that the company was born out of necessity during an influx of Arabic-speaking refugees in San Diego, with his mother providing interpretation and him leveraging his legal background to establish a compliant, scalable business that now serves healthcare, government, education, and social serv...
Florian and Esther welcome Slator’s Anna Wyndham and Alex Edwards to SlatorPod to explain the rationale behind the new industry framework introduced in the Slator 2025 Language Industry Market Report. Drawing from the flagship report and echoing the buzz of SlatorCon London, the team explains why the traditional labels, Language Service Providers (LSPs) and Translation Management Systems (TMSs), no longer capture the scope and complexity of the evolving market. Instead, Slator has introduced ...
In a SlatorPod first, four guests — Scott Cooper, CEO of Language Services Associates (LSA), Pablo Tercero, COO of LSA, Jerry Song, CEO of Lingolet, and Edward Varela, VP of Business Development at Lingolet — shared their insights into a newly forged partnership. Scott explained that the decision to partner instead of building an in-house AI solution allowed LSA to stay focused on its core strengths while leveraging Lingolet’s technical edge. The alliance goes beyond a vendor agreement, with ...
Rong Yan, CTO of HeyGen, joins SlatorPod to recount the company’s transformation from a Metaverse-focused startup to leading the emerging field of AI video generation. Rong recounts HeyGen’s beginnings and the pivot to its current avatar model, which saw ARR go from zero to USD 1m within six months. Rong attributes HeyGen’s success to its emphasis on three key elements: quality, consistency, and controllability. The company’s newest model, Avatar IV, enables full-body video generation with na...
Véronique Özkaya, Co-CEO of DATAmundi, returns to SlatorPod for round 2 to talk about the company’s strategic rebrand and how it is positioning itself as a key player in the data-for-AI space. Véronique details her journey to leading DATAmundi, formerly known as Summa Linguae, where she now drives a strategic shift from traditional language services to AI-focused data enablement. The Co-CEO explains that their LSP background makes them well-suited to offer fine-tuning services for AI, especia...
Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with DeepL becoming the first third-party translation app users can set as default on the iPhone, a position gained by navigating Apple’s developer requirements that others like Google Translate have yet to meet. Florian and Esther examine RWS’s mid-year trading update, which triggered a steep 40% share price drop despite stable revenue, healthy profits, and manageable debt. On the partnerships front, the duo covers multiple c...
John Worne, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL), joins SlatorPod to discuss CIOL’s mission to support and promote language professionals and the value of languages for the public good through professional standards, advocacy, and intercultural understanding. John highlights the challenges of applying AI in high-stakes contexts like court interpreting. He references the UK House of Lords inquiry into language services in the legal system, which emphasized the risks of AI, partic...
Luke Innes, CEO of Creative Translation, joins SlatorPod to discuss how the global transcreation agency puts “human at the heart of the process” of multilingual branding by combining creativity, cultural insight, and strategic use of AI. Luke recounts his unconventional entry into the language services industry, charting a path from his roots in design to leading Creative Translation. Despite early skepticism around the term “creative translation,” he built a business model that puts creativi...
Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, breaking down Slator’s 2025 Language Service Provider Index (LSPI), which features nearly 300 LSPs and reports 6.6% combined growth in 2024 revenues, totaling USD 8.4bn. Florian touches on a surprise USD 10m donation from private equity executive Mario Giannini to launch a new MA translation and interpreting program at California State University, Long Beach. The duo talks about McKinsey’s State of AI report, which continues t...
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