Act 2: Moving Pictures

It’s been three years with GenAI in our lives.

You may think we understand what AI can or cannot do (at least those in the Global North think they do). But think again. There are entire regions of the world that are playing catch-up to the AI-first reality. And there are always newcomers to our industry who need guidance to set them on the right path.

Ultimately, progress will look different to every team and professional. It won’t be linear, and it may come at a cost. It may require us to redefine ourselves. In our quest onward, no one should be left behind, right?

In this section, read the articles that explore the human side of the (r)evolution unfolding around us.

Konstantin Savenkov

CEO at Intento

Konstantin Savenkov is the Co-Founder and CEO of Intento, a machine translation and multilingual generative AI platform for global companies. Its Enterprise Language Hub enables companies like Procore and Subway to deliver consistent, authentic language experiences across all markets and audiences. It combines machine translation and generative AI models into automatic translation workflows, customizing them to client data and integrating them into customers’ existing software systems for localization, marketing, customer support, and other business functions. With Intento, clients achieve high-quality, real-time translations for all users and team members worldwide.

While many fear AI will replace translators, this misses a bigger opportunity. The problem isn’t automation, it’s that most professionals focus on execution rather than governance.

Today’s industry creates value through translation but captures it downstream when customers buy localized products. This gap means automation won’t capture value at the execution level but will create bottlenecks elsewhere, following Ricardian rent principles.

Rather than competing with machines, successful professionals should focus on the bottlenecks that automation creates, particularly human judgment. As long as humans benefit from translation, they must define requirements and assess quality. Fewer humans in execution makes governance more critical.

One Intento customer shows this shift in action. Their in-house team previously produced thousands of words daily. Now, the same team defines nuanced market requirements — some of which can’t be expressed in English — and develops prompts to meet them. Through risk-based sampling and strategic oversight, they govern 10 million words daily: a 1000x increase in leverage.

This move from translator to translation strategist is localization’s hidden opportunity. AI doesn’t eliminate expertise; it multiplies it. Success requires shifting from doing work to defining what good looks like, from execution to governance.

The future belongs to professionals who utilize this change to their advantage, allowing AI to amplify their impact rather than competing with it. The question isn’t whether machines will translate — it’s whether we’ll govern how they do it.

This reframing turns the automation threat into an opportunity for massive scale and influence, where a single expert’s judgment can shape millions of words across global markets. Smart management decisions and proper tools make this possible.

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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