That was when I started to calm down and discipline my mind. For starters, I forced myself to focus on only reliable sources of information such as professional associations like the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA), industry news outlets like MultiLingual Media, and prominent research groups like Nimdzi Insights.

My next step was to meet with my SuccessGlo co-founders, who shared the same concerns as me. Together, we decided to focus on how AI could help boost our quality and productivity to gain a competitive edge in providing localization services to our clients.

And sure enough, we began to see positive impacts after implementing AI. Yes, our usual revenue model was affected as AI took over some tasks in service to our clients, but AI also enabled us to do more languages in a shorter time with the client’s existing budget. Sometimes, the client even allocated more budget based on the increased languages and volume of work.

AI support has helped us to engage with linguists who are willing to come on board and grow alongside the technology in this new co-creation time with AI. We even have existing linguists who are willing to be upskilled. Furthermore, for our linguists who prefer to do translation from scratch, the good news is that not all enterprise clients are keen to jump onto the AI bandwagon yet. The world is so big, with so many niche markets geographically and vertically, that there is still a mix of enterprise growth stages. Therefore, we will need both traditional linguists and AI-enabled linguists to help our clients, be it enterprise clients or other LSP partners.

As I started to have clarity on what the future of an AI-empowered localization industry could look like, I realized that — by obsessing about the future of my own job — I had not thought enough about the clients’ needs and my company’s mission.

What’s more, I began to see how broader developments in AI were bringing attention to our industry. When I was visiting my in-law family in Malaysia, I happened to sit next to my husband’s nephew who is studying industrial engineering at university. He was excited to show me the English-to-Bahasa Indonesia translation app he created using large language models (LLMs) and AI-enabled software apps. He talked about wanting to ensure the translations reflected cultural subtleties and nuances. It was wonderful to see someone outside of our industry understand the importance of localization services, and it was thanks to his interest in AI!