There’s no denying that artificial intelligence has well and truly made its mark on modern-day society. It has changed the way almost every industry, sector, and business professional operates, planting its roots in marketing, administration, customer service, cybersecurity, and more.
With this in mind, it came as no surprise that the translation industry was one of the first to be disrupted by the promises and potential of generic AI. Organisations across the world have started experimenting with raw AI tools, hoping to take their global content to new heights. They show no sign of slowing down any time soon.
But maybe they should…
How can raw AI pose a problem to businesses?
Raw AI translation methods are appealing. They’re fast, and they’re effective – to a point.
However, it’s important to remember that while automated translation can get the words right, one question remains. Can it consistently capture the message correctly? Companies still face a huge risk when converting text without a human review process: the loss of meaning. The very core of communication.
Nuance, humour, tone, and intent can easily be lost in the AI translation process. When this happens, your end-of-funnel conversion copy fails, your campaigns begin to lose engagement, and messages begin to confuse.
This is both a commercial and creative issue for global businesses, resulting in damaged trust, a diluted brand identity, and a negatively impacted revenue. However, this definitely doesn’t mean you should avoid all AI translation models.
Why? Because the problem doesn’t inherently lie within AI, it’s how it’s used.
Why consider shifting to quality-centric AI workflows?
Forward-thinking businesses have seen the limits of raw AI translation models and had the metaphorical veil lifted from their eyes. Instead, they’re beginning to embrace something far smarter and a whole lot more beneficial.
A workflow that localises meaning.
In comparison to generic, raw AI, quality-centric localisation workflows adapt every single piece of content, ensuring that every word, sentence, and phrase fits with local cultures, their contexts, and unique consumer expectations — all while maintaining your brand’s distinctive tone of voice.
At THG Fluently, we’re proud to be at the forefront of this shift towards quality-centric outputs. For over 20 years, Fluently has embraced evolving technology solutions with human expertise, and now with the advancements in AI, we are further helping organisations scale globally with quality-centric content at speed.
Our model is built around a “team” of specialist AI agents supported by a client’s brand assets, including style guides, glossaries, and existing translation memories. This has enabled us to deliver a demonstrable localisation process that has never been faster, more cost-effective, and most importantly, increasingly human in its output.
The three pillars of our smarter localisation workflow
Understanding how our workflow operates is important, but what matters most are the tangible benefits it brings. When put into practice, our AI localisation strategy relies on three key pillars, each designed to balance efficiency with quality and control.
1.Tailored AI models
Instead of relying on generic data sets, the output of our AI models is influenced by your brand’s very own linguistic assets. From your style guides and product data to previous translations, this information becomes the DNA that drives every future output. This can ultimately reduce post-editing time, ensure consistency, and drive productivity.
But what does this look like in action? For a technical brand, this may mean your unique workflow champions content precision and accuracy above all else. For a luxury retail brand, a niche, specific tone of voice guideline will help you stand out in a crowded industry.
When you utilise such a bespoke AI model from the outset, you’ll always stay two steps ahead of the curve, with content that feels tailored from the very first draft.
2. Automated Quality Estimation (QE)
Every piece of translated content that enters the Fluently workflow is automatically scored against a set of dimensions such as accuracy, style, and terminology for Quality Estimation (QE) purposes.
If a piece of content meets the required score, it will be advanced to the next stage. If it doesn’t, it’s automatically flagged for expert, human review. This offers the businesses we work with real-time visibility into how each translation performs, without having to manually check over every sentence.
This reliable feedback loop has become hugely beneficial for large-scale global businesses, allowing them to translate large volumes of content quickly, without ever losing control of quality.
3. The strategic Human-in-the-Loop
As you can see, with THG Fluently, human review is far from non-existent. It’s essential to our high-quality process, and made smarter by our strict Quality Estimation (QE) benchmarks.
In our workflow, linguists and localisation experts can place their focus and expertise where it is most valuable. Rather than editing every line manually, they refine only the translations that fall short of the QE benchmarks and therefore require a human touch.
And here’s the best part: Every correction made by our linguists is stored in our central system, which will influence all future outputs, thus maximising consistency and efficiency.
Our workflow continuously learns, improves, and brings cost-effective benefits, all while keeping human insight at the core of translation operations. It’s a system that delivers speed and human quality simultaneously.
The proof: A real-world example from THG Fluently
Our workflow has already been reshaping what’s possible in translation and content localisation.
We successfully implemented our AI-powered, human-enhanced workflow for a major cosmetics e-retailer. The goal was to increase efficiency without losing the brand’s unique tone – a common challenge for businesses within the beauty industry.
By training our AI agents on the brand’s existing content, we were able to automate 77% of their translation output while meeting the required quality benchmarks. This resulted in a 68% reduction in overall translation costs.
As well as delivering both creative and commercial ROI, our workflow proved to:
- Reduce costs via measurable savings.
- Deliver high-quality content in less time.
- Consistently maintain brand personality and tone.
- Save time so our human experts could focus on other high-value and high-impact projects.
- Generate informative data insights designed to drive, optimise, and measure future localisation strategies.
Generic AI can’t localise your content for you, but THG Fluently can
It’s time to move away from raw AI translation methods. When AI is paired with tailored training, data-driven quality control, and human expertise instead, there’s no denying that localisation is the best way forward for global companies and their consumers.
With THG Fluently, your brand can speak every language fluently, consistently, and at scale. Our intelligent AI system brings out the best of both humans and machine technology.