Act 3: Reframing the Scene

What does the future hold?

Chances are, every person you ask this question will offer a different answer. And that’s as it should be (let’s leave the probable-words-in-a-sequence prediction to something else). The future will likely be composed of a multiplicity of parallel realities, much like a multi-colored glass vitrage.

Any discussion about the future comes with its share of responsibility. A responsibility toward ourselves, the teams we work in, and the communities we are involved in. A responsibility for those who come next — the next generation of talent that will be entering our industry.

When reading this closing section, ask yourselves: What are YOU doing to affect those around you positively?

Michael Levot

Head of Localization at Canva

Michael is Head of Localization at Canva, a graphic design platform available in over 100 languages and with more than 100 million users in languages other than English each month.

Here are three quick snapshots from Canva’s localization team in Q2 2025:

1. We hired for a new senior localization role in a key market. The successful candidate’s prior experience was in sales and product.
2. We kicked off a large-scale localization initiative. We used project templates (presentation decks, whiteboards) borrowed from our colleagues in UX design and content design.
3. We purchased two new software tools and engaged with two new agency partners. The software was for creative review and video dubbing, and the agency partners were production agencies. 

The common thread of these snapshots is that they don’t fit within (what I consider to be) the boundaries of the localization industry and craft. Talent, playbooks, and partners you won’t find in the buffet line at Monterey. 

Another common thread from the above is that all of these things are in some way or another a response to internal pressures: an organization frustrated with the process-driven, efficiency-oriented, scale-obsessed approach of our localization team; stakeholders who speak their own dialect of growth and customer value; in-market teams who would rather take matters into their own hands — even at significant cost — than accept a centrally funded solution that limits their ability to tailor content to local nuances.

When I was asked to share my thoughts on “Who comes next?” and what the next crop of people driving localization will look like, my mind immediately went outside the boundaries of the language industry and the idea that these things and these people might play a bigger role in the future than they do today. The next generation of localization leaders shouldn‘t be defined by deep specialization in tools or workflows. They should bring skills from marketing, growth, product, and research into our industry. This isn’t a prediction. (I have enough trouble predicting the future at Canva, let alone the rest of the world.) It’s an ambition. The future should look different. 

Of course it should look different. Who looks at the current state of things and thinks “This is as it should be”?! The challenges are so familiar and ubiquitous that they’ve become too trite to repeat at any length. Our metrics don’t measure what matters. Our stakeholders don’t consider us strategic partners. Agencies are underpaying the talent. Repeat ad infinitum. 

So, in a moment when the vendor side is facing obliteration, and the buyer side is unhappy with their lot, why wouldn’t we all take the opportunity to rethink the whole endeavor? 

At Canva, we piloted this shift by reallocating linguists’ time. Rather than scoring thousands of randomly sampled strings, we now run weekly qualitative audits of complete user journeys. A native speaker signs up, publishes a design, upgrades to Canva Pro, and shares a template — exactly as a customer would. They flag moments of friction, cultural mismatch, or emotional dissonance that an MQM spreadsheet could never surface. Vendors still perform the bulk of quantitative checks, but our internal experts focus on the experience that actually moves revenue and retention.

This is not mere process tinkering; it is talent realignment. Suddenly the most valuable localization skills look a lot like product growth, UX research, and data storytelling. In our upcoming Japan Localization Lead role, “localization experience” appears fourth on the list — after cultural insight, product growth, and content strategy.

One uncomfortable hypothesis raised in our editorial brainstorm is that the industry’s operating model is often shaped less by buyer needs than by what vendors can sell at scale. If your revenue comes from per-word production, you optimize for throughput; if you earn margin on QA, you preach the gospel of error categories and severity scores. Buyers may internalize those frameworks without questioning whether they map to user value.

The next wave of leaders will flip that dynamic. They will start from the user’s end-to-end experience, and then reverse-engineer the processes and partnerships required. They will measure fluency, delight, and conversion rather than error density. And they will buy services, not because those services fit a legacy RFP template, but because they accelerate the product’s mission.

Read the full 132-page Global Ambitions: (R)Evolution in Motion publication featuring vital perspectives from 31 industry leaders on the ongoing AI-spurred (r)evolution.

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