Nieman Lab.
Predictions for
Journalism, 2025.
Is artificial intelligence ready to transform my content into other languages with cultural precision?
The answer is that it’s almost there, and by 2025, it will reach its full potential, making now the perfect time to develop a multilingual and multicultural strategy.
Artificial intelligence enables our content to be translated not just into another language, but with the cultural nuances unique to each language. The possibilities are endless: from English to Spanish, Mandarin, Portuguese, Italian, or Swahili. From Spanish to German, Russian, French, or Zulu. From Portuguese to African languages in its former colonies. These are some examples of what could be achieved.
It’s not a crazy idea. AI has exponentially improved translation quality, and we already see agencies like the Associated Press partnering with OpenAI for translations. For example, each translated piece from English to Spanish ends with a specific note: “This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative AI tool.” That disclaimer contains two key elements: machine assistance and human editorial oversight, forming a perfect balance.
The opportunities are clear. AI drastically reduces translation costs while enhancing quality, far superior to basic translation services and without needing an army of translators limited by their daily output.
This opens a tangible opportunity for more, better content across various languages, with human intervention focused on validating the information, ensuring it’s accurately translated from the original.
Media outlets experimenting with markets limited by language barriers will find that AI aids even with regional expressions — something previous translation methods struggled with. Consider the global Spanish-speaking market: 548 million Spanish speakers worldwide, 474.7 million of them native speakers, a market several times larger than the entire United States. In the U.S., 2022 census data reports a Hispanic market of 63.7 million people. Thirteen states boast over a million residents, with an average age of 30.
Does this not scream opportunity? The Hispanic market’s purchasing power is on the rise, as detailed in the U.S. Latino GDP Report published by the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture and the California Lutheran University’s Center for Economic Research and Forecasting. The total economic output of Latinos living in the United States in 2021 was $3.2 trillion, up from $1.7 trillion in 2010. If Latinos living in the United States were an independent country, its GDP would be the fifth-largest in the world, larger than the GDPs of India, the United Kingdom, or France.
In Spanish alone, the business of content translation is rife with opportunities, and depending on each media outlet’s audience characteristics, the same will be true for other languages. It will all come down to adopting the right strategies, and by 2025, we will see many of them unfold.
Benjamin Morales-Meléndez is managing editor of Diario Libre in the Dominican Republic.
Is artificial intelligence ready to transform my content into other languages with cultural precision?
The answer is that it’s almost there, and by 2025, it will reach its full potential, making now the perfect time to develop a multilingual and multicultural strategy.
Artificial intelligence enables our content to be translated not just into another language, but with the cultural nuances unique to each language. The possibilities are endless: from English to Spanish, Mandarin, Portuguese, Italian, or Swahili. From Spanish to German, Russian, French, or Zulu. From Portuguese to African languages in its former colonies. These are some examples of what could be achieved.
It’s not a crazy idea. AI has exponentially improved translation quality, and we already see agencies like the Associated Press partnering with OpenAI for translations. For example, each translated piece from English to Spanish ends with a specific note: “This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative AI tool.” That disclaimer contains two key elements: machine assistance and human editorial oversight, forming a perfect balance.
The opportunities are clear. AI drastically reduces translation costs while enhancing quality, far superior to basic translation services and without needing an army of translators limited by their daily output.
This opens a tangible opportunity for more, better content across various languages, with human intervention focused on validating the information, ensuring it’s accurately translated from the original.
Media outlets experimenting with markets limited by language barriers will find that AI aids even with regional expressions — something previous translation methods struggled with. Consider the global Spanish-speaking market: 548 million Spanish speakers worldwide, 474.7 million of them native speakers, a market several times larger than the entire United States. In the U.S., 2022 census data reports a Hispanic market of 63.7 million people. Thirteen states boast over a million residents, with an average age of 30.
Does this not scream opportunity? The Hispanic market’s purchasing power is on the rise, as detailed in the U.S. Latino GDP Report published by the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture and the California Lutheran University’s Center for Economic Research and Forecasting. The total economic output of Latinos living in the United States in 2021 was $3.2 trillion, up from $1.7 trillion in 2010. If Latinos living in the United States were an independent country, its GDP would be the fifth-largest in the world, larger than the GDPs of India, the United Kingdom, or France.
In Spanish alone, the business of content translation is rife with opportunities, and depending on each media outlet’s audience characteristics, the same will be true for other languages. It will all come down to adopting the right strategies, and by 2025, we will see many of them unfold.
Benjamin Morales-Meléndez is managing editor of Diario Libre in the Dominican Republic.
