LATEST ISSUE
December 2025
Making Sense of 2025: Language leaders reflect on a historic year
In this end-of-year issue, 15 company executives share their thoughts on the developments that defined 2025. In the face of technological evolution and economic disruption, these leaders found creative ways to adapt and strengthen their businesses.
Post Editing
W
e made it through 2025! It’s a year that will be remembered in wildly different ways depending on where you were and how you experienced it. Just look at the responses MultiLingual magazine received from language-industry leaders and CEOs. I found their three-word summaries of 2025 to be particularly revealing. It’s not easy to sum up anything in three words — never mind an entire year — and the variety of verbiage we received is fascinating. As we all begin processing and understanding this past year of developments, we hope these interviews will prove helpful.
There was perhaps one predictable element of 2025 from the jump: that artificial intelligence (AI) technologies would continue to dominate the industry conversation. In this issue of MultiLingual, Veronica Hylak breaks down the year’s AI innovations in her top 10 picks.
Next, Jonathan Otis shares his insights concerning the state of the language industry’s business landscape, describing it as comparatively humble but resilient. Otis sees language services as occupying a middle ground in the global marketplace.
We hope you can absorb this information-packed issue while spending time with your loved ones in quiet and comfort. Take a breather. You earned it. We’ll be back next year.
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Event Recaps
ATC THRIVE 2025
On October 22nd and 23rd, the Association of Translation Companies’ global community came together for a two-day “unconference” exploring how language service providers can grow through collaboration, technology, and genuine relationships.
KONBIT25
Hosted by Creole Solutions and streamed worldwide by MultiLingual Media, this two-day event featured keynote addresses, panel discussions, and live performances — all centered on the theme of Haitian Creole as a bridge to understanding.
LocWorld54
With a theme of “What’s Next?,” LocWorld returned to Monterey, California, on October 14–16. AI took center stage, with the conference exploring where the technology is taking us — and where we are taking it.
Workflow
Reshaping SaaS Localization With Automation and Risk-Based Thinking
Noting how AI is transforming the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry, the author offers seven best practices for SaaS localization workflows — emphasizing that success isn’t about simply accumulating tools, but about fundamentally redesigning processes.
Community
Making Sense of 2025
Language leaders reflect on a historic year
Interview by MultiLingual Staff
Chief executive officers and business leaders in the language industry reflect on the past year. The general consensus is that 2025 was a year of disruption, uncertainty, and transformation, primarily driven by AI technology evolution.
Bruno Bitter
CEO, Blackbird
David Brackett
Founder and CEO, Linguava
Christophe Djaouani
President, TDL
Bertrand Gstalder
CEO, Acolad
Marleen Julien
Founder and CEO, Creole Solutions
Stanislav Kalenyuk
Co-Founder and CEO, InText
Marco Trombetti
Co-Founder and CEO, Translated
Alexander Ulichnowski
CEO, Argos Multilingual
Josef Zibung
CEO, STAR Group
Artificial Intelligence
The Top 10 AI Developments of 2025
How the facade finally cracked
The article lists the top 10 AI developments in 2025, arguing that this was a year of plateau in AI innovation. The focus shifted from infinite growth to making technology usable, dependable, and aligned with human work.
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Business
A Quietly Resilient Sector
Language services offered steady consolidation opportunities in 2025
Compared with the wider mergers and acquisitions market, the language industry stands out for its moderate growth, fragmented markets, and global footprint. In 2025, much of the localization business saw steady returns while operating largely out of the limelight.
Sponsored Content
Unlocking Latent Demand in Translation
Supported by Translated
Translated CEO Marco Trombetti identifies the frictions holding back global demand for localization and shows how AI removes them.
Smartling: Bridging Humanity and Multilingual Innovation
Supported by Smartling
Smartling’s innovative technology and services offer a recipe for making language departments not just valuable, but indispensable. The company’s CEO, Bryan Murphy, discusses his team’s customer-centric approach and core values of durability, reliability, adaptability, and humanity.
Translation Memory Was Invented When People Still Smoked on Airplanes
Supported by Blackbird.io
Picture it. The year is 1993. Bill Clinton is President. Jurassic Park is the biggest movie of the year. People carry pagers. The internet is a curiosity for academics. You can still light a cigarette at 30,000 feet.
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