Simon Yoxon-Grant is president and CEO of LanguageLine Solutions.
Here's a question: Would you ride in a driverless car for a few blocks through your neighborhood? Probably. Would you take that same car onto the freeway? Perhaps. Would you board a pilotless plane for a cross-country flight? Unlikely (highly).
When it comes to travel, we instinctively assess risk along a spectrum because we understand that not all trips are equal. A wrong turn in your neighborhood is an inconvenience. A malfunction at 30,000 feet is catastrophic.
Yet when it comes to language services, the market of late has tended to treat all scenarios as equivalent, asking simply "Can AI do this?" without the more important question: "What’s at stake in this interaction?"
Unlike travel, we're seeing buyers default to automation without calibrating for risk. This concerns me deeply, not least because of how it stands to take us off course as we strive to build a more inclusive society.
The conversations we're having with our clients are profoundly different than they were 12 months ago. The current administration has shifted demand patterns and priorities. Budgets have been revised and reconsidered. Transformative technology has arrived..
We're working with tools that simply weren't available before. I’m proud of how we’ve responsibly used them to develop new capabilities, refine our processes, and update our service models.
What hasn't changed is our "why."
We do what we do to create a world in which language and cultural barriers no longer exist. This purpose hasn't moved an inch, nor has the fact that language access—and the compassion and inclusion it enables—remains a human right.
Whether we're deploying AI solutions for straightforward interactions or human linguists for more intricate communication, we're factoring not just for efficiency, but for equity.
The challenges ahead are real. The pressure to default to total automation will intensify. I’m inspired by the fact that throughout this past year of upheaval, our clients have remained anchored in their commitment to doing this right.
Not just quickly, but carefully. Not just efficiently, but equitably.
