Christian Arno, president of Edinburgh-based Lingo24, believes that the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in translation services will save companies hundreds of thousands of pounds by cutting costs significantly.

Arno says that the use of AI will decrease the length of time it takes to get a product to market by 75%, especially in the B2B space. It is this saving that Arno says will result in quicker revenue growth for companies. Arno’s comments come ahead of the official launch of Lingo24’s launch of its new AI driven service Agility Multichannel Connector, which is said to offer seamless and automated translation from Agility’s PIM system .

The company has spent the past three years working with some of the fastest growing B2B companies to develop its latest innovation and says it is already bringing tangible results to its customers.

The Best Results Come When Human Skills and AI are Combined

Arno said: “AI is no longer some far-off fantasy from science fiction films like The Matrix or Interstellar – it’s already here. The firms with the fastest-growing B2B e-commerce revenues are using AI-enabled translation to cut their costs, speed up their time to market and, ultimately, grow their sales.

“But that doesn’t mean that computers or robots are taking over – we’ve found that the best results come when we combine the skills and experience of our talented translators with the latest AI-enabled computer technology to speed up repetitive tasks. Combining the best of both human translators and AI is a very powerful tool for our clients.”

Arno said this latest service will prove especially useful when creating product catalogues – a laborious and time consuming task. A typical catalogue can contain 50,000 products, with around 10% of them being replaced each year. Product descriptions can contain 100 words which have to be translated into ten different languages. AI-enabled translation services are typically saving between 40% and 45% – a potential annual benefit of more than £300,000.

A trial of the product has been rolled out to some of Lingo24’s customers, who are already reporting an average increase of 44% in international sales. In 18 months, one customer, a global electronics distributor, halved the time it took to launch products globally from four weeks to two weeks – with that figure coming down to just one week this year. Another client – an international specialist in plastic, fibre, foam and packaging products, which operates in 33 countries – reduced its cost per translated word by up to 50%.