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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 over 2 weeks ago

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

AI Translations is a new task type that lets you translate content quickly, accurately, and at scale — with full automation built directly into the Lokalise interface. You can create and manage AI translation tasks right from your project dashboard or via the API, without switching to other tools.

Powered by the AI assistant which uses advanced models like GPT-5 and Claude translations are enriched with your project’s context, glossary, and style guides. With smart routing across multiple LLMs, Lokalise automatically selects the best model for each language pair and content type, ensuring consistently high quality.

What AI Translations offers

  • Translate content into dozens of languages and variations.

  • Tasks are automatically assigned to the Lokalise AI assistant, with keys locked until completion.

  • Add custom instructions (e.g., tone of voice, formality, target audience).

  • Ensure glossary terms and existing terminology are respected.

  • Receive notifications as soon as translations are finished.

  • Translations delivered up to 10× faster than traditional human workflows.

  • Save up to 80% in costs while maintaining scalability and quality.

  • Only 20% of output requires post-editing, flagged automatically via quality scoring.

Most tasks take just a few minutes to complete, depending on content volume and number of target languages. You’ll see the estimated completion time once you set the scope.

How AI in Lokalise delivers human-like translations

Just like a professional translator, our AI solutions produce translations that sound natural, not robotic or overly literal. This is achieved through AI orchestration:

  • Context-aware translation – each task is enriched with your glossary, translation memory, and style guides, so terminology, cultural nuance, and brand voice are preserved.

  • Smart model routing – content is dynamically routed to the most suitable large language model (e.g., GPT-5, Claude, or others), depending on the language pair and context.

  • Fluency and accuracy – the result is content that is precise yet reads as if written by a native speaker.

In around 80% of cases, translations are ready to publish immediately, without further edits.

Currently, Lokalise does not support customization or fine-tuning of integrated AI models, such as GPT or Claude.

Supported languages

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

Supported locales

  1. Afrikaans

  2. Albanian

  3. Arabic

  4. Armenian

  5. Assamese

  6. Azerbaijani

  7. Bashkir

  8. Basque

  9. Belarusian

  10. Bengali

  11. Bihari

  12. Bosnian

  13. Bulgarian

  14. Catalan

  15. Cebuano

  16. Corsican

  17. Croatian

  18. Czech

  19. Danish

  20. Dutch

  21. English

  22. Esperanto

  23. Estonian

  24. Faroese

  25. Finnish

  26. French

  27. Frisian

  28. Galician

  29. Georgian

  30. German

  31. Greek

  32. Gujarati

  33. Haitian Creole

  34. Hebrew

  35. Hindi

  36. Hungarian

  37. Icelandic

  38. Indonesian

  39. Interlingua

  40. Interlingue

  41. Ido

  42. Irish

  43. Italian

  44. Japanese

  45. Javanese

  46. Kannada

  47. Kashmiri

  48. Kazakh

  49. Khmer

  50. Kabuverdianu

  51. Konkani

  52. Korean

  53. Kyrgyz

  54. Lao

  55. Latin

  56. Latvian

  57. Limburgish

  58. Lithuanian

  59. Luxembourgish

  60. Macedonian

  61. Malagasy

  62. Malay

  63. Malayalam

  64. Maltese

  65. Mauritian Creole

  66. Mongolian

  67. Marathi

  68. Neapolitan

  69. Nepali

  70. Northern Sami

  71. Norwegian

  72. Occitan

  73. Oriya (Odia)

  74. Pashto

  75. Persian

  76. Piedmontese

  77. Polish

  78. Portuguese

  79. Rhaeto-Romanic

  80. Romanian

  81. Russian

  82. Sardinian

  83. Scottish Gaelic

  84. Serbian

  85. Sindhi

  86. Sinhala

  87. Slovak

  88. Slovenian

  89. Somali

  90. Spanish

  91. Sundanese

  92. Swahili

  93. Swedish

  94. Tagalog

  95. Tamil

  96. Telugu

  97. Thai

  98. Tatar

  99. Turkish

  100. Turkmen

  101. Ukrainian

  102. Urdu

  103. Uzbek

  104. Vietnamese

  105. Welsh

  106. Walloon

  107. Xhosa

  108. Yiddish

  109. Yoruba

  110. Cantonese

  111. Chinese Simplified

  112. Chinese Traditional

  113. Zulu

Note: This is not an exhaustive list. It will be updated based on the quality level and our confidence in each language. If you'd like us to support additional languages and are willing to help with translation quality evaluation, please let us know!

Using AI Translations

Creating a new AI Translations task

Keep in mind that AI Translations consume Pro AI words quota. If the team that the project belongs to does not have any Pro AI words left, you won't be able to create the AI Translations task. Refer to the Team quotas article to learn more.

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

Via the editor

It's important to remember that a translation key cannot be assigned to a new task if it is already part of another ongoing task. To include such a key in a new task, you have two options:

  1. Wait for the existing task to be completed: Once the task is finished, the key will be available for reassignment in a new task.

  2. Remove the key from the current task: If you need to reassign the key immediately, go to the project editor, select the key, and use the Remove from task option available in the bulk actions menu. This will free up the key, allowing it to be included in a different task. However, if the key is already marked as completed in the task, it won't be possible to remove it from that task.

Start by selecting multiple keys in the editor. You can do this by ticking the checkboxes next to the keys you want to include in the task.

Once selected, choose Create task... from the bulk actions menu. This will take you directly to the task creation page, where the task scope is automatically set to the keys you’ve selected.

Via the Tasks page

Alternatively, you can create a task from the Tasks page in your project. Simply navigate to your project and go to the Tasks page:

Click Create a task. This will open the task creation wizard, where you can define the task's details and scope.

Providing general task information

In the task creation wizard, you'll find a new task type called Automatic translation. Select this type to begin.

Choose Automatic translation task type

Start by giving your task a name and adding task instructions. These instructions provide high-level context for the translation and help our AI produce results that are better aligned with your needs. Think of them as a description of the task, not a detailed set of linguistic rules.

The instructions field has a 2,000-character limit.

Can't I just use task instructions to control tone or terminology?

We don’t recommend it. Task instructions are best for high-level context (e.g., what the content is and where it will be used).

For tone, formality, or terminology, attach a style guide to the task. Our AI will use it as additional context, alongside your project glossary, which is applied during the translation process.

Enterprise customers can also take advantage of custom AI profiles to provide even more context.

Using task instructions like prompts may seem to work in small cases, but it often produces inconsistent results across languages and larger volumes. Our AI performs best when rules are structured, centralized, and applied systematically through style guides and glossaries.

Good uses of task instructions:

  • “This task contains UI copy for the mobile banking app dashboard.”

  • “Includes labels and tooltips for e-commerce product pages.”

  • “Internal help desk content for IT support.”

What task instructions are not:

  • ❌ A replacement for your style guide or glossary

  • ❌ A place to define terminology, spelling, or brand rules

  • ❌ A prompt-style request to the AI

Adjusting advanced task options

When setting up an AI Translation task, the advanced options are limited to the following:

  • Apply 100% translation memory matches — when enabled, Lokalise will search for exact (100%) matches in the translation memory for all strings included in the task. If a match is found, it is applied automatically. AI will not modify these segments and no AI words are consumed.

  • Translate all segments (including existing translations, except 100% TM matches) — available only for segmented projects. When unchecked (default), AI translates only empty segments and skips non-empty ones. This is the new default behavior for segmented projects. When checked, AI translates all segments, including those that already have translations.

    • Note that the Apply 100% translation memory matches option (enabled by default) always takes priority. Even if Translate all segments is enabled, any segment with a 100% TM match will be filled from translation memory and will not be sent to AI, ensuring consistent results and avoiding unnecessary AI word usage.

  • Mark translations as verified — when enabled, all translations produced by AI during the task will be marked as verified.

  • Save translations performed by AI to Translation memory — choose whether translations generated by AI should be saved to your translation memory for future reuse.

  • Tag keys after the task is closed — enable this option to automatically tag all translation keys included in the task once it is completed, helping you track and manage them later.

Adjusting task scope

Select the scope and languages:

  • Task scope — adjust the filter to select the specific keys that need to be included in the task. This ensures that only the relevant content is translated.

  • Source language — choose the language that will serve as the reference for the translations. This is the language from which AI will translate.

  • Target languages — select one or more languages that you want the AI assistant to translate into.

    • Ensure that you choose the correct locale for each target language. Incorrect or unspecified regions can lead to unexpected translation results. For instance, selecting "Portugal" might cause the AI to use Brazilian Portuguese. To avoid this, make sure to choose "Portuguese (Portugal)" for translations intended for that region.

  • Task assignees — you cannot modify assignees in AI Translation tasks, as all translations will be automatically handled by the Lokalise AI assistant.

Task summary

On the right side of the task creation wizard, you'll see the task summary along with your Pro AI words balance.

View task summary

Pro AI words quota

This section shows how many Pro AI words your team has available. Below (in the task summary) you'll also see how many words will be consumed by the task.

Pro AI usage is based on input: the number of source-language words multiplied by the number of target languages included in the task. In addition to Pro AI words, every AI-powered task also consumes processed words, which are counted from the output — the total number of words the model generates across all target languages.

Example:
If your task includes 40 source words and you assign it to 3 target languages, the task will consume:

  • Pro AI words: 40 × 3 = 120 Pro AI words

  • Processed words: depends on the output (e.g., 38 + 41 + 40 = 119 processed words)

For more details on how quotas work, refer to the Team quotas article.

Estimated delivery time

The summary also provides an estimated delivery time for the task. This is an approximation and may vary depending on current system load.

Frequently asked questions

💡 Looking for more?
Find all answers in AI: Frequently asked questions!

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