#219 PR Wars over LLM Translation Quality

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with a nearly USD 4m settlement involving Language Line Services and ongoing disputes in Canada, where freelance interpreters are protesting against unpaid breaks during debates.

Florian highlights a YouTube video about UN simultaneous interpreting and the rigorous standards and working conditions for UN interpreters.

Esther shares a significant procurement opportunity from the UK's Crown Commercial Service, which plans to issue a GBP 250m tender for various language services.

In tech news, the duo talk about DeepL’s new LLM launch that claims to outperform competitors in translation quality. They also touch on the trend of adding translation features to various SaaS platforms, like Airtable and Happy Scribe.

A tweetstorm by venture capitalist Olivia Moore from Andreessen Horowitz introduces the concept of "AI Scribes," suggesting a significant market opportunity for AI-driven transcription services.

In an M&A and funding corner, AI video startup Captions raised USD 60m at a USD 500m valuation and Mantra, a Japanese manga translation startup, raised nearly USD 5m. Toppan Digital Language acquired Austria’s Meinrad and Universal Music Group partnered with SoundLabs AI for voice cloning and language transposition in songs.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro and Agenda
• 1:54 Legal Cases and Settlements in Interpreting
• 4:08 Insights into UN Interpretation
• 7:19 GBP 250m UK Language Service Tender
• 13:05 DeepL Launches New LLM
• 16:15 Translation Integration in SaaS Tools
• 18:25 VC Introduces 'AI Scribes'
• 22:21 AI Video Editing Startup Captions Raises USD 60m
• 26:53 Japanese Manga Translation Startup Mantra Raises USD 5m
• 28:53 Toppan Digital Language Acquires Austria’s Meinrad
• 30:14 Universal Music Group Partners with SoundLabs AI for Music Translation
• 31:20 RWS Certification Course