Executive summary

It's time to rewrite the rules of translation

In the age of AI, enterprises are focused on finding productivity gains and scaling their businesses efficiently.

Yet translation is the one area proving stubbornly resistant to these changes. Its timelines are long and unpredictable, costs escalate, and errors and compliance risks multiply at scale.

From marketing to product, legal to HR, outdated translation workflows are stalling progress, and the consequences are significant.

To understand the scope of this challenge, we analyzed responses from 5,005 business leaders across the US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan to map where the process is breaking down—and how to fix it.

The data paints a clear picture: enterprise translation is still stuck in manual, legacy tools and processes—but growing adoption of next-generation Language AI shows a more scalable, efficient model emerging.