Linguistic Services: Transformation in a Connected World
The rapid rise of global business, the exponential growth of content digitization, and the personalization of customer services are empowering the linguistic services sector worldwide.
According to Statista, in the United States alone, the market size of the translation services industry steadily increased from 2015 to 2022, reaching nearly USD 10 billion. Globally, the sector now exceeds a value of USD 72 billion, with a projected growth to surpass USD 98 billion by 2028. What are the strengths of the industry, and what can we expect in the future?
Key Aspects of the Current Scenario
“Linguistic rights are human rights: we all have the right to use our dominant language. For many people, this is only possible with the assistance of translation or interpretation professionals,” stated Alison Rodriguez, President of the International Federation of Translators (FIT). The importance of translators and interpreters has become even more evident in 2023, given various crisis and wartime contexts.
The Global Multilingual Interpretation Market is estimated valued at US$ 18.25 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach US$ 27.26 billion by 2030.
Source: Coherent Market Insights
Thus, the significance of translation and interpretation in the face of extremely complex cultural and political issues remains a key factor in the sector’s growth. Worldwide demand for interpretation has been particularly driven by healthcare interpretation in the United States, remote interpretation, and voice-to-voice innovations.
The market for subtitles and transcriptions also sets the pace for the sector. These services assist a wide range of businesses, non-profit organizations, and government agencies. Transcriptions have become an integral part of many industries, including healthcare, education, legal, media, and entertainment.
Netflix’s investment in dubbing has been growing between 25% and 35% per year for the past few years, and the consumption of dubbed content on the platform is scaling even faster, up on average more than 120% annually.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Additionally, voice-to-text technology is adding accessibility to these services and expanding use cases. “Introducing new products to help emerging verticals track accurate data is becoming increasingly important in response to growing demands. For instance, Robin Healthcare has launched its own AI-based product Robin using cutting-edge technology. The device captures conversations between medical practitioners and patients in exam rooms and uses the data for clinical documentation. Robin posts it within 24 hours in an EMR for evaluation. Companies benefit from such services because they enable employees to listen instead of taking notes.” expressed Grand View Research.
Meanwhile, Meta has unveiled a new AI model that translates and transcribes almost a hundred languages as part of its work on developing a universal translator: SeamlessM4T can perform text-to-voice, voice-to-text, voice-to-voice, and text-to-text translations for “up to 100 languages.”
New Multilingual Opportunities
Another determining factor for the thriving translation world is video game localization. In fact, it is the fastest‑growing field in the linguistic industry and one of its most promising niches in the short and medium term.
“As the games market grows — and becomes more competitive, complex, and global — game publishers and developers are increasingly turning to language service providers (LSPs) to provide localization and culturalization expertise at scale,” adds the specialized site Slator.
The Global Game Localization Services Market is expected to reach a market value of USD 2.1 billion by the end of 2027.
Source: Verified Market Reports
As localization tools advance and experiences become more personalized, AI-driven dubbing also strengthens. Recently, the voice-cloning company ElevenLabs launched a dubbing tool capable of replacing the voice of any original actor with an identical voice in over 20 languages. The voice translation tool can convert spoken content into another language within minutes, preserving the original speaker’s voice.
Technological barriers are shifting, and industry professionals continue to add value to each project. The future of linguistic services is directly linked to the expansion of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and large language models (LLMs), through new skills and applications that will transform the industry.