Skip to main content
All CollectionsTranslate and collaborateTasks
AI Translations
AI Translations

Assign tasks to AI to quickly and accurately translate content in a fully automated way.

Ilya Krukowski avatar
Written by Ilya Krukowski
Updated this week

You might also be interested in learning about AI-powered language quality assurance and the AI suggestions features.

Also make sure to check our free Lokalise AI course covering all AI-based features and providing best practices.

AI Translations is a new task type that enables you to quickly and accurately translate content in a fully automated way. It uses Lokalise AI assistant built on OpenAI's GPT API to automatically translate content taking into account context, such as your glossary terms, and instructions you provide when creating a task.

Introduction

AI Translations is a new task type that is built on top of the Lokalise AI. AI Translations task provides the following capabilities:

  • Create a task to translate content in 30 languages and their variations (see full list below)

    • The task will be automatically assigned to Lokalise AI assistant

    • During the ongoing task, all translation keys will be automatically locked until Lokalise AI assistant finishes the job for the respective language

  • Provide additional instructions to Lokalise AI upon task creation, such as specifics about target audience, tone of voice or formality level to be used

  • Receive notifications upon language translation completion

  • Leverage existing terminology to ensure that all translations respect your glossary terms

On average, AI Translations takes just a few minutes to complete but this heavily depends on the amount of content and number of languages that you decide to perform it on. You would be able to see estimated time of completion once you selected languages and scope.

Supported languages

AI Translations currently supports the following languages and their variations for different locales:

Fully supported locales

  1. Afrikaans

  2. Arabic

  3. Catalan

  4. Chinese Simplified

  5. Chinese Traditional

  6. Czech

  7. Danish

  8. Dutch

  9. English

  10. Estonian

  11. Finnish

  12. French

  13. German

  14. Hebrew

  15. Hindi

  16. Hungarian

  17. Indonesian

  18. Italian

  19. Japanese

  20. Korean

  21. Latvian

  22. Lithuanian

  23. Polish

  24. Portuguese

  25. Romanian

  26. Russian

  27. Slovak

  28. Slovenian

  29. Spanish

  30. Swedish

  31. Turkish

  32. Ukrainian

  33. Urdu

  34. Vietnamese

Additionally, the following locales and their variations are supported in beta. These languages have been added recently and we’re still evaluating its quality. Thus, we recommend to double-check the AI translation results.

Locales in beta

  1. Albanian

  2. Armenian

  3. Azerbaijani

  4. Basque (Spain)

  5. Bengali

  6. Bulgarian

  7. Chinese Traditional (Hong Kong, zh_HK)

  8. Chinese Traditional (Hong Kong, zh_Hant_HK)

  9. Congolese Swahili

  10. Croatian

  11. French (Reunion)

  12. Georgian

  13. Greek

  14. Icelandic

  15. Icelandic (Iceland)

  16. Irish

  17. Kazakh

  18. Kyrgyz

  19. Malay

  20. Maltese

  21. Norwegian

  22. Persian

  23. Persian (Afghanistan)

  24. Persian (Iran)

  25. Serbian

  26. Swahili

  27. Swahili (Kenya)

  28. Swahili (Tanzania)

  29. Tajik

  30. Thai

  31. Uzbek

Note: This is not an exhaustive list. It will be updated based on the quality level and our confidence in the respective language. If you want us to support other languages and are happy to help with translation quality evaluation, let us know!

Using AI Translations

Creating a new AI Translations task

To get started with AI Translations, open any project in Lokalise and create a new task. There are two ways to create a task.

First, you can select multiple keys in the editor by ticking checkboxes next to their names and then choosing Create task... from the bulk actions menu. This will open the task creation page with a predefined task scope, limited to the keys you have just selected.

Alternatively, open your project and proceed to the Tasks page:

Click Create a task to open the task creation wizard.

In the task creation wizard you will see a new task type called Automatic translation (Lokalise AI). Choose this type:

Provide the task name and fill in instructions for Lokalise AI. These instructions will be used to translate content more accurately.

Some examples of what you can include as instructions:

  • Translate idioms into equivalents appropriate for the target audience.

  • Maintain a conversational tone.

  • Use simple language.

  • Do not translate idiomatic expressions word-for-word.

  • Avoid unnecessary abbreviations.

Instructions field has a 2000 character limit. Once you have completed instructions, proceed to the next step.

You can attach a style guide to the task to provide additional context and guidance. For more information, please refer to the relevant article.

Lokalise AI will also respect your project glossary and use entries from it.

Adjusting task options

Advanced task options will be limited to the following:

  • Apply 100% translation memory matches — when enabled, Lokalise attempts to find exact (100%) matches in the translation memory for the strings included in the task. If a match is found, it will be used straight away. This feature provides consistent results with the translation history.

    • In this case Lokalise AI will not perform any additional modifications to the translated text, meaning this option doesn't consume AI words.

    • Please note that if the system detects a 100% matching TM entry, the subsequent option Use the best 75%-100% TM match as context for AI (see below) will not affect the current translation.

  • Use the best 75%-100% TM match as context for AI — when enabled, Lokalise will try to search for the best translation memory entries for the strings included in the task. If a match within 75-100% similarity range is identified, it will be provided to the AI as contextual reference. Please note that only the best match is sent to the AI, rather than all found entries.

    • This functionality consumes AI words since the identified match is sent only as contextual reference, and the AI will still need to perform the actual translation.

    • Enable this option if you'd like the AI to be creative and not rely solely on existing 100%-matching TM entries.

  • Save translations performed by AI to Translation memory — you can choose whether you want translations performed by Lokalise AI to be saved into your translation memory or not.

  • Tag keys after the task is closed — tag translation keys added to the current task once it's completed. This way you'll be able to easily identify these keys afterwards.

  • Save as task template — this task can be used as a base when creating other tasks (scope and languages will be pre-selected).

Adjusting task scope

Select the scope and languages:

  • Task scope — adjust the filter to select the keys that need to be added to the task.

  • Source language — choose the language to be used as a reference.

  • Target languages — select one or more languages to be translated by the Lokalise AI assistant.
    Ensure the chosen locale has the correct region. Incorrect or unspecified regions can lead to unexpected results. For example, selecting "Portugal" might cause the AI to use Brazilian Portuguese. To avoid this, choose "Portuguese (Portugal)".

  • Task assignees — you cannot modify assignees, as all languages will be assigned to the Lokalise AI assistant for automatic translation.

Task summary

To the right, you'll see the task summary and your Lokalise AI words balance:

In this summary you can see the AI words quota for your team and the number of AI words to be consumed in this exact task. Please refer to the Team quotas article to learn about the words quota.

You will also see the estimated delivery time for this task. Please note this is an approximate number and it can fluctuate depending on the load on our system.

Frequently asked questions

What context is used for the AI translations task?

The AI will use:

Will Lokalise AI overwrite existing translations?

If a key is added to an AI translation task, its existing translations will be overwritten. The only exception is when you enable the Apply 100% translation memory matches option. In this case, the AI will attempt to find exact (100%) matches in the translation memory. If a match is found, it will be used right away, and the AI words quota won't be affected.

What features are available?

You'll be able to use the AI Translations to provide instructions to Lokalise AI and run automatic translations in bulk taking into account the context and your terminology.

How does Lokalise AI translation work?

Lokalise AI uses Open AI models to assist with content translation. At Lokalise, we add an extra layer on top of OpenAI’s models to improve the precision and accuracy of your translations. For example, we give you the option to add context, like glossary terms and style guides, which Lokalise AI takes into account to deliver terms and phrases that are more accurately translated.

What types of content can be translated using Lokalise AI?

Lokalise AI translation is incredibly versatile and can handle a wide range of content types, including websites, documents, emails, marketing materials, user-generated content, and more. It can adapt to different industries and content formats, making it the perfect solution for businesses aiming to reach global audiences.

How accurate are Lokalise AI translations?

Lokalise AI translations can vary depending on factors like language pair and content complexity. But based on feedback from our customers, we can give you a ballpark estimation of around 80% accuracy. In most cases, you might just need to make minor changes for the remaining 20% to make it perfect for your specific needs.

Can Lokalise AI handle translations of highly specialized or technical content?

Absolutely! Lokalise AI can handle translations of highly specialized or technical content. Our AI models are trained to understand complex terminology, ensuring accurate translations even for the most specialized industries.

How will my data be used?

The only data being processed by LQA is the source text, target translations, key descriptions, and glossary terms matching the content. We’ll use the data for machine learning unless you explicitly withdraw your consent to do so. Machine learning is vital for us as it'll allow to introduce new AI-powered features and enhance the existing ones.

Related Articles
Translation memory
Lokalise Messages for Drift
Translation editor
AI Suggestions
AI LQA
Did this answer your question?