Why Straker AI is built for tomorrow’s translation needs

Today, businesses are under pressure to deliver accurate and cost-effective localization at scale and at pace.

At Straker, our AI language technology is leading the transformation of the translation/localization sector.

During a recent presentation at SXSW 2025, Dasha Steen-Marchetti, Senior Vice President at Straker North America, provided compelling insights into how AI is reshaping the future of global communication and how Straker is meeting this important need with advanced translation technology.

Here’s how we’re making it happen:

1. We acknowledge the need for language preservation

Humanity has created over 31,000 languages throughout history, yet fewer than 6,000 remain today. Alarmingly, nearly 1,000 of these could vanish within our lifetime.

Dasha emphasized:

“We've lost nearly 84% of all languages ever spoken. AI technology presents us with an extraordinary opportunity – not just to enhance communication but also to preserve and celebrate our diverse cultural heritage.“

With this in mind, Straker is fully committed to using AI to safeguard these vulnerable languages, embedding cultural sensitivity deeply into our technologies.

2. We believe in human-AI partnership

AI alone isn't enough. The unsolved 15th-century Voynich Manuscript highlights the limitations of purely automated approaches. Despite extensive AI analysis, decoding the manuscript remains impossible due to missing human context and comparative linguistic data.

“Without reference languages or comparable linguistic data, even the most advanced AI struggles. This clearly demonstrates why human expertise remains critical.”

Straker believes that the desire to communicate and be understood across borders is a deeply human trait and so humans must remain involved, always.

Leveraging the speed and analytical capabilities of AI together the rich knowledge and expertise of human linguists is where we see the future. By blending the capabilities of AI technology with human expertise, translated content is more natural, more culturally nuanced and more accurate.

3. We believe quality evaluation of AI translated content is vital

AI translation tools like Deepl and Google Translate do not provide you with an indication of quality or accuracy. You have no idea how good or bad the translated output is – and that's a risk.

Many businesses are currently leaning on a native-speaker within the business to check and correct AI generated translations, but this isn't scalable. And its not the best use of their time.

Straker Verify's quality evaluation engine solves this problem. Verify delivers every translation with a quality score, so you know exactly how good it is.

4. We enable collaboration among global teams without disruption

Adopting new technology can be disruptive with businesses often losing momentum in the transition. Onboarding and training staff can be time-intensive and the disruption of existing workflows and operating procedures can have a serious impact on bottom line.

Straker has made it easy to incorporate its translation and quality verification technology into existing collaboration platforms.

As Dasha noted in her speech:

“Our Slack integration removes language barriers instantly, allowing smooth communication among global teams.”

Straker’s AI translation tech integrates directly into tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, to avoid disruption of working practices and enabling your teams to stay connected – no matter where they are or what language they speak.

5. We tailor language solutions for every type of business

Each industry has its own concepts, terminology, acronyms, compliance requirements, and other nuances specific to its category.

Our AI tools allow you to include your brand tone of voice, terminology and translation memory to better align your AI translations with your domain-specific needs.

Additionally, Straker offers customizable AI models. If your business translates often, you’re likely sitting on an untapped asset: your own linguistic data.

Transform that data into a competitive advantage by harnessing TIRI, our proprietary Small Language Model, and train it on your data.

Custom TIRI models are a powerful way for you to scale. They retain your specific brand voice and terminology, continually learn, and consistently outperform machine translation and generic large language models.

With your own custom AI model your translations aren’t just accurate – they're perfectly on-brand and uniquely yours.

These powerful solutions support businesses across various industries, including legal, healthcare, technology, and manufacturing. We know that each sector has its own language challenges, and our AI products can help you stay accurate, consistent, and context-aware.

6. We’re continuously building AI products for the future

As Dasha concludes her talk,

“The future is bright, driven by the combination of human intelligence and AI technology working seamlessly together."

With a foundation built on proven expertise, pioneering AI technology, and sector-specific insight, places Straker at the forefront of the translation industry’s revolution.

As we continue to build next-generation tools, we’re focused on helping businesses not only measure the quality of their translations, but also refine and optimize them. Be it legal, healthcare, tech, or beyond, our solutions are designed to meet the real-world demands of your industry, now and in the future.

Watch the full video of Dasha Steen-Marchetti, here to learn more.