Unbabel co-founder and CEO Vasco Pedro on the first day of Internet Summit 2023 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon.
Miguel Reis | Sopa | Light Rocket | Getty Images
LISBON — Unbabel announced an artificial intelligence-powered translation service on Wednesday, adding another competitor to a crowded field — and its chief executive warned that within three years humans may not be needed at all.
Widn.AI is a new product from Unbabel, based on the company’s proprietary large language model (LLM) called Tower. LLM is an artificial intelligence model that supports applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Unbabel’s Master of Laws allows for artificial intelligence translation in 32 languages, company CEO Vasco Pedro told CNBC in an interview at the Internet Summit in Lisbon.
“When we started at Unbabel 10 years ago, artificial intelligence had not reached the stage it is now, so we were very focused on creating hybrid solutions that combined artificial intelligence and humans,” said Pedro.
“But I think, for the first time, we believe that translation is now fully within the realm of artificial intelligence capabilities, and that there are a lot of things you can do with translation that don’t require a human.”
Unbabel’s traditional products incorporate so-called machine learning (a type of artificial intelligence) to translate words, but with human editors checking the final product.
Pedro said Widn.AI does not need humans.
“I think humans still have a slight advantage in very difficult use cases. But that advantage is very slim right now, except for the really…most difficult use cases, and we believe that artificial intelligence is really enabling that, which It’s hard for me to look now and see three years from now, you’re going to need humans to translate anything,” Pedro said.
Widn.AI is the latest product in an increasingly competitive market that includes products from Google Translate and German startup DeepL.
These companies see translation as a key area in which their LL.M.s can be effectively used, and have specifically trained models to handle a variety of languages.
Pedro acknowledged that revenue per translated word would be “significantly reduced.” But he said the amount of translated content will increase, which will sustain the company’s growth.
Pedro said Unbabel is talking to investors and hopes to raise $20 million to $50 million in funding to fuel Widn.AI’s growth and development.
