Roots & Wings

By Talia Zur Baruch, GlobalSaké & LocLearn Founder

May the new year bring you meaningful internal and external explorations, with exciting new discovery experiences and open antennas to appreciate them all!

My 2025 kickoff was a family trip in Hawaii’s Big Island, packing our three marvel kids (now fully launched to the world!) to see Kilauea’s volcano eruption, walk in its newly formed perfectly broken caldera, and soak in “Pele’s breath” hot steam pouring out of Earth’s inner depths. Volcanoes are monuments to Earth’s origin, to primordial forces. 

Kilauea’s recent eruption is a reminder that our planet is ever-changing and us humans can only stand witness in awe. 

Roots & Wings: Like the planet, our industry is also rapidly changing with the eruption of powerful new technologies. To keep up with AI’s latest advancements and fuel transformative growth, we need only to take a deep-breath leap and ride its wave. As we reconnect with our human Roots--the natural world around us, we’re now also invited to reimagine our Wings and explore the Human-Machine connection.   For me, resilience in the new era means:

• Dynamic adaptation to new environments and requirements (which, at the core, is what Localization is all about!)

• Cross-functional up-skilling in interdisciplinary integrated lifelong learning,

• And a multi-perspective, 360-rounded-view mindset for effective problem solving.

As multilingual gen AI advances to enable real-time deploys of local content origination across any language and medium (text, voice, audio, video), with regional & cultural nuance fit adaptations, the orientation will shift away from the traditional source to target linear translations paradigm. The major gap I see global companies face today is the ability to align their cross-functional team efforts to effectively launch “global-ready” real-time solutions for the diverse use cases of their customers across the globe.

Into the future, the core value-add in Localization, in my view, will be to expand beyond "language support" and more strategically, help organizations shift mindset away from the old school linear “domestic” vs “international” operations mode (sharded systems, siloed org structures, and segmented product dev/delivery), and instead shift gear to an adaptive “global-ready from the get-go” systems & people orchestration in circular launch mode.

These principles have been my driving force Mission for our GlobalSaké Movement since its inception in 2017: Connecting people across functions, cultures, and regions to cross-pollinate, leveraging the complementing skillsets and diverse perspectives for better-informed, rounded global solutions. 

And now, with the most recent dramatic emergence of China’s DeepSeek open-source AI tools, the impact on Multilingual AI and the localization industry at large will accelerate. Here’s how:

1. Enhanced Multilingual AI Capabilities

   • Better Language Support: Open-source AI tools like DeepSeek can improve language coverage, namely for underrepresented languages that commercial models may neglect.

   • Improved Contextual Understanding: With open-source access, developers can now finetune models to better handle dialects, cultural nuances, and slang.

   • Less Bias & More Inclusive AI: Open-source frameworks allow researchers to identify and correct biases in language models across different cultures.

   
   

2. Disrupted Localization Industry

   • Faster & Cheaper Translations: AI-driven MTs reduce costs and improve turnaround time in localized output deliverables.

   • Automated Content Adaptation: AI is gradually getting better in adapting content for cultural context, making localization flow more seamless.

   • Market-Segment Customization: Open-source AI allows companies to tailor language models for specific industries, from legal to gaming and e-commerce.

3. New Opportunities for Growth in Open AI Ecosystems

   • AI-Augmented Localization: Localization professionals are already shifting toward AI-assisted workflows, focusing on refining machine-generated translations rather than starting from scratch.

   • Community-Driven Improvements: Developers worldwide can now contribute to enhancing AI capabilities for a wider range of languages.

   • Cross-Industry Applications: Beyond localization, optimized multilingual AI will benefit customer support, content moderation, and e-learning.

Overall, DeepSeek’s open-source AI tools could democratize multilingual AI and accelerate the automation of localization, pushing the industry toward new possibilities for Human-AI collaboration.

What do you think are some of the challenges and opportunities ahead?