AI translation has reached near-human quality for common language pairs. Here are the tools that matter for businesses going global.
DeepL
The highest quality neural machine translation for European languages. Consistently outperforms Google Translate for German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch in blind quality evaluations. DeepL Pro starts at $25/month and includes an API for integration.
Google Cloud Translation API
Supports 130+ languages - the widest coverage available. Quality has improved dramatically with Neural Machine Translation. Essential for platforms requiring coverage of less common languages. Pay-per-character pricing.
Lokalise AI
An full localisation platform for software products. Connects to your codebase via GitHub, Figma, or API. AI auto-translates new strings as developers add them, maintaining a glossary of brand-specific terms. Used by Revolut, Notion, and Spotify.
Weglot
The fastest way to make a website multilingual. Install one JavaScript snippet and Weglot automatically detects and translates your entire website. Maintains SEO with proper hreflang tags and language subdirectories. From $17/month.
Claude and ChatGPT for Translation
For high-stakes translations (marketing copy, legal documents), use ChatGPT GPT-4o or Claude with the prompt: "Translate this [source language] text to [target language]. Maintain the original tone and register. Localise culturally appropriate idioms rather than translating literally."
