The language industry will remember 2024 as bringing an interesting mix of rapid-fire innovations and developments, with some clear trends emerging on the technology side, including translation as a feature (TaaF), multimodal AI adoption, retrieval augmented generation (RAG) applications, and large language model (LLM) customization.

The balance between human expertise and AI automation continued to feature prominently in discussions among industry experts, while companies of all sizes had their own takes. Reactions from readers, per weekly Slator polls, give a glimpse of sentiments and priorities across the industry.

1. Should Language Service Providers Rethink Their Offerings?

Despite the language service industry’s historical resilience, 2024 began with news of a few bankruptcies. The shift was evidence that not even a healthy amount of funding or the latest in AI technology can guarantee permanence, with Germany’s AI startup Lengoo filing for bankruptcy in March 2024, preceded by the Dutch WCS Group in December 2023 (later on bought by Powerling).

The most voted on Slator Weekly poll revealed that over half (52.1%) of respondents believed that more language services provider (LSP) bankruptcies were inevitable in 2024. Just under a third (31.1%) thought more bankruptcies would probably follow, and a smaller group (13.4%) said it was possible. The smallest percentage (3.4%) of respondents thought future bankruptcies were unlikely.

Source: Slator

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