The Benefits of Machine Translation in Business Applications

The concept of machine translation has existed since the 9th century when an Arabic cryptographer, named Al-Kindi, developed techniques that led to a type of rudimentary language translation system. But language translation is such a complicated and error-prone field that no one thought that machine language translation would ever deliver the same sort of accuracy that could be accomplished by humans.

In the late forties and early fifties, the invention and development of the computer brought the concept of machine translation back into the minds of several researchers. They thought that with the power of the new computers, that accurate machine language translation might be possible after all.

The concept of using machines in translation processes became a viable idea to work on again, and strides in the development of the idea were made between the fifties through the nineties. As computers increased in power and their ability to take on more complicated tasks, statistical models for machine translation were created. However, the idea was first introduced by Warren Weaver in 1949.

These statistical models were the forerunners of neural machine translation, which is the basis of translation by machine used today.

Improvements of Neural Machine Translation and AI

The development of the concept of neural networks to replace the old statistical translation models accelerated the development of translation by a machine. A neural network uses just a fraction of the memory and computational power that statistical translation models once did.

But the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) played a significant role in the accelerated acceptance of this new type of translation. With AI, the neural network algorithm can improve itself. It can ‘learn’ and better its ability to translate languages. The more translation input it receives, the faster it learns. And the more different and varied the sources of input, the faster it can adapt itself to translating different languages. 

International Business Takes Notice

Today the abilities of machine translation are well-known. Anyone who has ever used Google Translate has seen the abilities of this type of translation. Google translate was, in its early days, something that a lot of critics targeted as a waste of time, because of its rudimentary and often hard to understand translations. And as languages constantly evolve, it may never be perfect.

But over the years, the translation system has improved itself, assisted by AI. And international businesses have been quick to consider the implications.

Putting Translation Services to Work

International companies and businesses wanting to expand into new, overseas markets recognize the value of this translation.

Video and teleconferences can be held with people speaking several different languages, and everyone can understand what is being communicated.

An international company will no longer have to maintain customer service staff in each country to speak to the customers in their native language. A centralized customer service center will be able to handle calls from all over the world and deliver a cohesive message that is instantly translated into many languages.

International business will realize an entirely new level of efficiency in communications between branches, customers, suppliers, and investors, all because of the benefits of machine translation.