Blog posts

This is where I write informally. Every week or so, I put down thoughts on language technologies and their technical and societal implications, often with a focus on translation and interpreting—but not only.

I like building things. I write software, develop projects, and test ideas in real settings. But building without reflection quickly becomes noise. I need to stop often and ask myself what I am actually seeing, what is working, and what it might mean. Writing is how I do that. It helps me slow down, clarify my thinking, and make sense of a field that is evolving faster than our ability to fully grasp it.

These posts are not final answers. They are part of an ongoing attempt to understand what is happening—and what might come next.

  • 25 Years of Research on Computer-Assisted Interpreting (2000–2025): a quantitative perspective
    Computer-assisted interpreting (CAI) has moved from near invisibility to recurring talking point in both research and professional circles. For most of the history of interpreting, the tools of the trade were minimal: a headset, a notepad, and the interpreter’s cognitive skill. Today, however, computational systems increasingly occupy a place, literally and conceptually, within the interpreting…
  • Trends 2026 in Technology and Interpreting
    At the beginning of 2025, I wrote a post trying to anticipate what the year would bring for technology and interpreting. As usual with predictions, I got some things right and some things wrong. I was right about the increase in interest in AI interpreting. That trend was unmistakable and has only accelerated. I was…
  • Deepfakes and Machine Interpreting: Some Analogies
    There is a quiet contradiction in today’s debates about AI and language. Many people insist that machine translation and machine interpreting will never work at a truly high level, at least not anytime soon. At the same time, those very same people express growing alarm about deepfakes: synthetic voices, faces, and videos that are increasingly…
  • What Role Can Interpreting Studies Play in an Age of Highly Capable Machines?
    What role, if any, can interpreting studies play in an era in which machines interpret at human — or even super-human — levels of accuracy? To answer this question, one must first accept a premise that many within the field still resist: machine interpreting will become extremely capable. As a researcher in interpreting studies and…
  • New Edited Volume: Machine and Computer-Assisted Interpreting
    I am happy to share a new edited volume in Linguistica Antverpiensia entitled Machine and Computer-Assisted Interpreting, which I co-edited with Prof. Xinchao Lu from Beijing Foreign Studies University. The volume is published in open access form — as, in my view, every publication in such a niche domain as interpreting should be. I will…
  • The Age of AI Music?
    Music has always been deeply influenced by technology. From the invention of new instruments to recording techniques, amplification, synthesizers, samplers, and digital audio workstations, technological shifts have repeatedly reshaped how music is created and consumed. This is particularly true over the last forty years or so. Nothing to do with technology and languages? Bear with…
  • The Expressiveness of Voices in Machine Interpreting
    A few days ago, I was invited to speak at the Franco-German broadcaster ARTE, where one of the topics on the table was the expressiveness of AI-generated voices. It is a timely subject. Voices generated by machines are approaching a point of near-indistinguishability from human speech. Some critics refuse to believe this, insisting that synthetic…
  • Real End-to-End Speech-to-Speech Translation is among us
    Only a few years ago, end-to-end speech-to-speech translation (S2ST) seemed like one of those technologies that belonged to conference talks and research papers rather than real products. When Google introduced Translatotron in 2019 or META Seamless in 2023, it was a glimpse of what might one day be possible: translating speech directly into speech, without…
  • “AI just swaps words” – Rethinking Semantics in the Age of AI
    Machine translation is still often dismissed by translators and interpreters as a simplistic word-swapping device, i.e. an automated dictionary that turns sentence A into sentence B by juggling vocabulary. This argument is used every day to suggest that machine translation is inherently limited and, ultimately, pointless. What’s striking is that this misconception mirrors another widespread…
  • What is the real uptake of AI Interpreting?
    Last week, I moderated a webinar on AI Adoption in Interpreting Workflows, organised by GALA’s Special Interest Group Interpreting. The aim was modest but necessary: to look at how AI interpreting is actually being used today, and to invite an open discussion among practitioners and stakeholders. To do that, we brought together two viewpoints that…
  • What Lies Beyond Meta and Translated’s Advances in Supporting Low-Resource Languages
    Two recent announcements — Meta’s Omnilingual ASR and Translated’s Lara 200 Languages — remind us that progress in AI-driven language technology is far from plateauing. Together, they demonstrate how automatic speech recognition and large language models for translation tasks, the two core components of current machine interpreting systems, are being extended to an impressive range…
  • InterpretBank ASR 3.0 – Some thoughts from behind the scenes
    A few days ago, we finally released InterpretBank ASR 3.0. This version means a lot to me — not because it’s “new”, but because it feels right — or at least that’s my genuine feeling about it. It took a few years, and a few wrong turns, to get here. But I think the wait…
  • The Day the German Chancellor Said AI will Replace Interpreters in the EU
    When asked recently about Spain’s request to make Catalan, Basque and Galician official languages of the European Union, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz offered a confident answer: “I believe that even in the medium term there is a very good solution: one day, thanks to artificial intelligence, we will no longer need interpreters. We will be…
  • Why the Next Big Wave of Speech Innovation May Be Hyperlocal
    In the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence, speech translation is often portrayed as a race already won by a handful of global titans. Meta, Google, Microsoft, Zoom, and a few others have built astonishing systems capable of turning speech from one language into another almost instantly. Around them, a constellation of specialized companies — KUDO,…
  • Giving AI Interpreters Eyes: Why Visual Grounding Matters
    At this year’s AMTA 2025 conference, I presented some research on a simple but overlooked question: what happens when AI interpreters can not only listen, but also see? Today’s machine interpreting systems, i.e. a specific form of speech-to-speech translation for immediate use, work remarkably well. They can turn spoken sentences in one language into spoken…
  • Beyond Conferences: Unlocking the Potential of AI in Public Service Interpreting
    When discussions about AI in interpreting arise, they almost always focus on conference interpreting: multilingual summits, corporate meetings, or international events. This focus is unsurprising: conference interpreting is highly visible and associated with prestige, as in the UN or the EU. Yet this emphasis has created a blind spot, both in the practical reality, but…
  • 2025: The Year Machine Interpreting Went Mainstream
    With Zoom, Apple, and Google jumping in, real-time translation is becoming as ordinary as Wi-Fi. Technologies rarely need to be perfect to change the world. They simply need to be everywhere. Smartphones, cloud storage, and video calls all followed this path: flawed at first, but once they became ubiquitous, their shortcomings mattered less than their…
  • What is a Super-Human AI interpreter?
    Discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) in interpreting usually revolve around two scenarios: using AI to support human interpreters or developing machine interpreting systems capable of delivering acceptable results on their own. Many stakeholders still doubt whether AI interpreters are realistic at all, while others already accept them as an emerging reality. A smaller group has…
  • Reducing Latency in Simultaneous Machine Interpreting with LLMs
    I have recently focused my efforts on a major pain point for users of simultaneous speech translation systems: latency. In real-world production environments, it’s not uncommon to see systems with a delay of 8, 10, or even 12 seconds or more, which makes for a frustrating and disjointed experience. The good news is that with…
  • Private by Design: Rethinking AI Interpreting Beyond the Cloud
    In recent weeks, an interpreter made headlines. According to Le Monde, the European Commission dismissed an interpreter suspected of espionage on behalf of Moscow. The individual had reportedly taken notes (while not interpreting) during a high-level, closed-door meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late 2024. The dismissal followed an internal investigation into the interpreter’s…
  • When Microsoft Ranked Us First — and It Wasn’t Good News
    A few weeks ago, Microsoft released an interesting paper titled “Working with AI: Measuring the Occupational Implications of Generative AI” ranking professions based on their alignment with the current capabilities of artificial intelligence. Of all the groups, translators and interpreters were the most aligned. The paper (or to be more precise the screenshot of one…
  • A Handbook for an Industry in Flux: Interpreting Meets the Age of AI
    In recent years, interpreting has undergone a silent but profound transformation. What was once a firmly analog profession rooted in face-to-face communication has been increasingly shaped by digital tools, remote platforms, and — more recently — artificial intelligence. Back in 2018, I proposed the idea of a “technological turn” in interpreting, anticipating a period in…
  • If Quality Is Contextual, Then AI May Be Better Equipped Than We Think
    As Director for Interpretation at the European Parliament, Alison Graves offers in this video thoughtful reflections on the evolving notion of quality in conference interpreting. In her presentation, focused on human interpretation, she moves away from rigid, perfectionist definitions and supposedly objective notions of quality, instead emphasizing the contextual, listener-centered nature of interpreting. Her arguments…
  • Is AI interpreting ready for prime time?
    Over the last few years, AI interpreting has made a leap, from flashy demos to real-world products. Machines can now translate speech between languages, sometimes with impressive accuracy. But interpreting isn’t just about getting the words right. It’s about context, nuance, stakes. And that’s where things get tricky. So, how good is AI at interpreting…
  • Innovation, Not Automation, might be the Key to Shape the Future of the Language Industry
    When we talk about the rise of AI in language services, the conversation too often gets stuck on automation. Most stakeholders, such as language service providers, scholars, and decision-makers, tend to view technology primarily as a tool to streamline existing tasks, making familiar processes faster, cheaper, or more efficient. But in my view, that’s the…
  • End-to-End Machine Interpreting: A Promising Frontier (That’s Not There Yet for Production)
    The idea of a machine that listens to speech in one language and instantly speaks it back in another — all in real time, and without missing a beat — has long captured the imagination of researchers, technologists, and organizations working in multilingual communication. This is the vision behind end-to-end machine interpreting: a single AI…
  • The Rise of AI and the Fall of the Gatekeeper
    This article has been first published in Multilingual Magazine. For much of modern history, access to specialized knowledge has required one thing above all else: a professional. Whether it was legal advice, tax planning, language translation, or even medical consultation, the path to expertise ran through a narrow gate, guarded by individuals who possessed not…
  • Speech Translation and the Illusion of Understanding
    Not long from now, we may see simultaneous interpretation move beyond its traditional home, those glass-walled booths at international summits and corporate conferences. For decades, interpreters have worked behind the scenes, their voices flowing invisibly into headsets, turning one language into another with precision and care. It has always been a service reserved for the…
  • Vibe Coding and the Language Industry: Letting Innovation Flow
    In my career at the intersection of language and technology, I’ve often felt like an outsider in the world of code. I never formally studied informatics or learned programming the “proper” way. Instead, I stumbled into it out of necessity, curiosity, and often frustration that the tools I needed as a linguist or translator and…
  • Against Consensus: On the Need to Break our Echo Chambers
    Recently, researchers at MIT conducted a striking experiment1. Participants were divided into three groups and asked to write a short composition. One group relied solely on their own cognitive resources. Another could consult the internet. The third turned to automated writing tools, including ChatGPT. Brain scans revealed a clear — and perhaps unsurprising — pattern:…
  • AI-First Interpreting Approach: What it is and Why it Matters
    The field of multilingual communication is undergoing a profound transformation. This transformation is rapidly ushering in an AI-first paradigm, a reality in which AI will be the default agent for translation and interpreting services. This shift is not distant or speculative; it is already underway, albeit still in the early stages for real-time spoken translation….
  • Beyond the Hype. Policymakers need advice.
    A few days ago I had the pleasure to give a keynote speech titled “Beyond the Hype: Navigating the Promise and Challenges of Technology in Interpreting” at Integrerings- og mangfoldsdirektoratet (IMDi) in Oslo, an institution fostering “equal opportunities, rights and obligations in a diverse society” in Norway. Language technologies have the potential to support institutions…
  • The 3-phases roadmap of AI Interpreting: Moving towards phase 2.
    AI or machine interpreting refers to the use of software to translate one spoken language into another (including sign language) in real-time, without human intervention or post-editing. It’s designed for immediate, dynamic communication, whether remote, face-to-face, simultaneous, or consecutive. Speech translation technology has a fairly long history and has been evolving rapidly in recent years,…
  • Preparing students for the Day after Tomorrow
    Year 2019. Geneva. At a time when technology still seemed distant from the profession of interpreting, I was a young scholar who dared to advocate for a paradigm shift in interpreting. In a panel on interpreter training, I reminded the interpreting academic community of its duty to prepare students and professionals not just for today…
  • Human-Parity in AI Interpreting
    A few weeks ago, I wrote about the intellectual and practical need to develop a Turing Test for Speech Translation to measure whether AI-driven interpreting systems have achieved high level performance in real-time language translation. The proposed test would be passed only when human judges can no longer distinguish whether a translation was produced by…
  • The Turing Test for Speech Translation
    Recent advancements in artificial intelligence have seen Large Language Models (LLMs) pass the famous Turing Test in conversational settings, marking a milestone in AI development. This achievement, demonstrated in some recent empirical studies, illustrates just how closely AI-driven dialogue systems have begun to mimic genuine human interactions. This should also serve as a reminder that…
  • Ethical aspects of Machine Interpreting
    Machine interpreting (MI), like any emerging technology, presents a range of ethical challenges that require careful consideration and governance (Cath, 2018; Floridi, 2021). Designed to enhance communication and understanding across language barriers, from everyday interactions to high-stakes scenarios, this technology has the potential to significantly impact diverse areas of human life. For this reason, its…
  • Beyond AI: Why the CIRIN Bulletin Still Matters
    In the rapidly evolving approaches to academic work, where digital resources and artificial intelligence are transforming the way research is conducted, there remains a steadfast beacon of scholarly rigor in Interpreting Studies: the CIRIN Bulletin. Compiled biannually by Daniel Gile, one of the most esteemed figures in the discipline, the CIRIN Bulletin is far more…
  • Panel: The Future of Interpreter Training: Challenges, AI, and the Path Forward
    This week, I had the privilege of moderating an interesting panel discussion on interpreter training and its future in the face of rapid technological change (video recording here). I was able to bring together experts from academia and industry, including: Carlo Eugeni, Winnie Heh, Giorgia Martina, and Dieter Runge. Each of them brought a unique…
  • System 0 – how technology is changing our minds
    It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then, it does. You come across something — an idea, a concept, a phrase — and it hits you like a lightning bolt. Suddenly, everything clicks. It could be a brand-new discovery, the articulation of an intuition you’ve long had, or the moment when a vague notion…
  • “Will AI replace interpreters” is the wrong question to ask
    If it’s true that questions are nearly as important as answers, then our first paradigm shift in grasping the profound changes unfolding in the field of interpreting should be to reframe the question itself. Instead of asking, Will AI replace interpreters? we should be asking, Can AI match human performance in interpreting? Only by reframing…
  • What future for translation and interpreting training institutions?
    In this post, I aim to explore the future of translation and interpreting education in academia, particularly the trajectory of translation departments and faculties. In short, my prediction is that translation departments and faculties will gradually lose relevance and, ultimately, at least some of them, sadly, disappear. Translation as a discipline will undoubtedly survive, as…
  • 10 random lessons I learned about AI (and humans)
    Lesson 1: “Many tasks that humans solve using intelligence can be solved by machines without requiring human-like intelligence.” In my opinion, one of the most profound insights on AI was articulated years ago by philosopher Luciano Floridi. He asserted, in a strikingly simple way, that while humans may be special in many respects, the tasks…
  • Trends for 2025 in Technology and Interpreting
    Predicting trends is never an exact science—it’s more of an art. Yet, I’m eager to take on the challenge. The good news? At the intersection of Interpreting and Technology I don’t anticipate any dramatic upheavals, apocalyptic scenarios, or seismic disruptions in the space. Change, after all, is a gradual process. Evolution unfolds over time; it…
  • The technological turn in interpreting and its short-term implications
    The field of interpreting is currently undergoing what I described in 2018 as a “Technological Turn,” a term highlighting the transformative impact of recent technological advancements on the profession. Until that time, interpreting had experienced relatively limited technological influence compared to other language-related fields, such as written translation. However, emerging developments in remote interpreting, computer-assisted…
  • Rethinking Machine Translation: Understanding, Reformulating, and Translating
    What if, instead of taking the direct route from one language to another, we applied the principles taught in translation schools to machine translation? Rather than translating words verbatim, we were trained to understand the meaning of a sentence, then reformulate that meaning — not the sentence itself — in the target language, taking into…
  • Simultaneous Speech Translation: from sentence to context-based approach
    Progress is an incremental process—sometimes with big, dramatic leaps, and other times with painstakingly small, almost invisible steps. In speech translation, the ultimate goal is clear: creating a system capable of accurately translating across languages and cultures, capturing not just words but also their intended meaning, while seamlessly adapting to the communicative context. But let’s…
  • Data Privacy in AI Translation and Interpreting
    Data privacy is a critical concern when using services, whether they are provided by humans or machines. There are many valid reasons for this: you may have confidential information that you do not want others to access, such as business strategies, financial data, or personal health details. Or you simply do not want others to…
  • Agency in AI interpreters
    Many people hold a static view of what an AI interpreter is or will be: a tool that translates literally and blindly, no matter how unclear or garbled the original speech is—whether it’s mispronounced, unintelligible, or ambiguous. A mechanical device capable only of direct, word-for-word translations. In other words, a piece of software that will…
  • What happens when AI can generate podcasts
    This was the question I asked myself when I first heard that this was technically possible. So, I had to try it out. I simply provided a link to something I know very well: my work, and watched the results emerge. Here are two podcasts generated by NotebookLM: The first is quite serious and is…
  • Towards non-discriminatory multilingualism
    Last weekend was Multilingualism Day at the European Institutions. This is a great initiative to showcase why multilingualism matters and what institutions do to make it possible “that all EU citizens can follow the work of directly-elected representatives in any of the 24 official EU languages.” While this effort is commendable, a simple reality check…
  • 4 years ago my journey in speech automation started
    Four years ago today, my personal journey in the practical implementation of Machine Interpreting started with a simple application -written in a rainy weekend just for fun- which is still available online for free at www.machine-interpreting.com. Try it out if you are curious! Now, commercial speech translation systems are completely different from that first naive…
  • The Clash of Interpretations
    In 1993, Samuel P. Huntington introduced the world to the concept of “The Clash of Civilizations” (article available here) positing that future conflicts would be driven by cultural and religious differences. Fast forward three decades, and we are witnessing the surge of a similar kind of cultural clash—not as important as the one described by…
  • Enhance Interpreting Training with YouTube
    Interpreting training relies on teachers providing students with suitable speeches to practice. Many times, trainers offer background information for preparation and transcripts of the originals for checking the quality of the rendition. The importance of training materials is demonstrated by the so-called repositories of speech curated by international organizations such as the European Union, with…
  • Challenges for machine interpreting in high-risk scenarios
    Discussions on the impact of translation and interpreting technologies in the field of multilingual communication are more important today than ever. Technology is improving rapidly and will continue to do so in the years to come. Consequently, its use in a multitude of contexts is bound to increase. While in most cases the use of…
  • Leadership in Machine Interpreting
    Machine interpreting is quickly becoming a part of our reality. It is expected to see broader adoption in the years ahead, driven by significant improvements in translation quality and other factors such as economic and societal changes. In this new era, it’s important to come to terms with a new state of affairs: spoken multilingual…
  • The ethical challenges of Machine Interpreting
    Machine interpreting (MI), like any emerging technology, presents a range of ethical challenges that require careful consideration and governance. As a tool designed to enhance communication and understanding across language barriers, it has the potential to significantly and positively impact various areas of human life, contributing to easy and affordable accessibility and inclusiveness. However, its…
  • Defining Machine Interpreting
    Automated spoken language translation is advancing quickly. This technology has various applications and use cases, each with subtle differences that can overwhelm many people. Despite this, understanding these nuances is crucial. That’s why I spent a significant part of my recent workshop “The State of Machine Interpretation” at GALA defining what Machine Interpreting is. In…
  • Education: Focus on what stays the same, rather than what changes
    I had the great opportunity to serve as a member of the advisory board for the new MA in Translation, Interpreting, and Technology at York University. I give my input on the curriculum design, focusing especially on the role of technology in university training. The new MA is now open and accepts applications. When I…
  • Empowering Autonomous Learning Through AI
    I recently developed a tool that gave birth to the first interpreting lesson entirely generated by Artificial Intelligence. The material (example available here) showcases the potential of Generative AI to transform teaching methods across various subjects, placing students at the heart of the learning experience by making them more autonomous. The dream of shifting the…
  • Having a professor at your fingertips? Is it possible?
    I couldn’t resist the temptation and created a digital clone of myself, or more precisely, of the knowledge from my publications on #interpreting and #technology. Now, people can engage in natural language conversations with this virtual counterpart, asking questions about the few topics where I possess some expertise. From what I can discern, as the…
  • Visual Cues as Comprehension Aids: the missing Link in Machine Interpreting
    Most of the time live communication takes place using both verbal and non-verbal means which are adjusted to the situational needs and communicative objectives of the interlocutors. This obviously plays a crucial role also in multilingual communication and in machine interpretation. For example, typical verbal means can be the so-called topicalization, i.e. positioning the most…
  • Machine Interpreting and Translation Universals
    Today, we’ve made generally available the integration of a Large Language Model (LLM) into KUDO AI Simultaneous Speech Translator. To the best of my knowledge, this marks the first instance of Generative AI being incorporated into a real-life speech translation system. When I began experimenting with LLMs in speech translation, I was immediately struck by…
  • Situational Awareness in Machine Interpreting
    Machine Interpreting, a subset of spoken language translation, is undergoing rapid advancements. The recent strides in this domain are particularly evident in the development of robust end-to-end systems. These systems utilize a singular language model to directly translate spoken content from one language to another. As impressive as this technology is, it currently finds its…
  • New Chapter: Towards AI-enhanced computer-assisted interpreting
    I am thrilled to announce my chapter for an upcoming publication on Interpreting and Technology. The chapter titled “Towards AI-enhanced computer-assisted interpreting” delves into the evolution of digital tools for interpreters and the rising influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on Computer-Assisted Interpreting (CAI). As a researcher and practitioner in the field, I have spent the…
  • My talk at AIIC 70th anniversary
    Last weekend, I had the pleasure of presenting in Brussels a talk titled “AI, Interpretation, and the Dynamics of Change” on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the AIIC – The International Association of Conference Interpreters. Here are some highlights from my discussion: 👉 We’re witnessing remarkable progress in AI’s proficiency in spoken language…
  • The Rise of AI: Reimagining Research Frontiers in Translation and Interpreting Studies
    Recently I had the incredible honor of delivering a keynote speech titled “The Rise of AI: Reimagining Research Frontiers in Translation and Interpreting Studies” at the XIII International Symposium for Young Researchers held at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Second time at this university in only 2 weeks. This time however in person. These are…
  • Narrow specialization is not a fit for the future of education
    I had the privilege of delivering an invited talk at Universitat Autònoma Barcelona recently. I have been asked to address a topic that I feel very connected with, being myself involved in the training of young people at postgraduate level. The central theme revolved around the changing landscape of Higher Education due to the transformative…
  • Creativity and poetry in the age of AI
    The world of artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly advancing, and recently AI has been used to create impressive works of art, such as realistic pictures or newspaper articles. This has sparked a lot of discussion on the possibility for AI to be truly creative (see this article by Forbes for an overview), with proponent emphasizing…
  • Interacting with Artificial Intelligence
    How do you interact with a Large Language Model? And how do you integrate its knowledge inside a real-life application, for example a bot, a translation system, or something similar? In this short video I show how easy it is to interact with a Large Language Model (LLM), in this case the famous GPT-3, using…
  • GPT-3 and DALL-E 2 on Interpreting
    Interpreting as a Profession Interpreters are important language professionals who facilitate communication between two or more people who do not share a common language. They interpret spoken or written messages from one language into another, ensuring that the meaning is conveyed accurately and faithfully. Interpreters play a vital role in many settings, including courtrooms, conferences,…
  • I cloned my own voice
    Most building blocks of Artificial Intelligence are increasingly plug&play. This means they are accessible to anyone with a basic knowledge of programming (mainly in Python). This is one of the recent revolutions in the field I will never stop emphasizing. If a company makes a product out of it, and you can bet it will…
  • Improving texts with Artificial Intelligence
    A few months ago, I wrote a simple demonstration AI-tool to rephrase and correct text in English. I now added 4 extra languages. The tool supports also French, Italian, Spanish and German. The tool is available for free here: https://www.claudiofantinuoli.org/apps/COR/index.html. If you are curious about how AI can rewrite sentences, what are its potentials and…
  • Facial emotion recognition may improve automatic speech translation
    Meta AI recently published a new framework (AV-HuBERT) to improve automatic speech recognition thanks to lips monitoring, de facto combining Speech with Vision, two of the traditional areas of Artificial Intelligence. Incorporating data on both visual lip movement and spoken language, AV-HuBERT aims at bringing artificial assistants closer to human-level speech perception (see META AI…