Today we're announcing the launch of OpenTranslate, the open TMS built for AI.
Although open software is a fundamentally new and different for enterprise translation management, open software is the tried and true path to progress, for decades.
In the AI era, open is winning more than ever. Good free, open, AI-native enterprise translation management is key for localization teams to not just survive but thrive.
The problem is lock-in and legacy.
We all know the problems with the status quo, with closed legacy software, whether cloud SaaS or even older seat licenses:
Lock-in and limits are the business model, and it's not built for AI. You wait for features and bug fixes for years or decades. You pay for words “processed”, which are mainly just ICEs, the 99.9% of content that has not changed for years. You pay an AI tax to access third-party AI, or even to access your own AI! Your content gets chopped into segments and sent to AI without context. You can't see the prompts, let alone edit them. Your data and workflows are trapped. You're hostage in pricing negotations.
This legacy is hurting enterprise localization teams and the translation industry, by driving “shadow localization”. The teams with content to translate would prefer to get enterprise translation — re-using human-reviewed content, AI that's aware of terminology, no broken formatting tags, systematic LQA, consolidated vendors and billing... But too much friction for AI that's worse than generic pushes them to use built-in AI translation features or wire up APIs. Lose-lose.
The TMS creates value.
Because of the frustration with closed legacy TMSes, it has became fashionable to talk about “post-TMS”. No more TMs, not more segments.
We believe the TMS is valuable and here to stay.
The localization team is responsible for managing translation AI, people, manual vendors, integrations, workflows and more.
The incredible speed and scale of the AI era only increases the need for managing enterprise translation in a system, not manually in spreadsheets, emails and chats.
The solution is an open TMS built for AI.
We also all know it doesn't have to be this way. Our phones and browsers, the most popular platforms, through which we access everything else, are free and open. No AI tax. No tiers. No limits on volume or apps. And they just keep getting better and better.
Free and open is more than just paying nothing, or reading the source code or running it yourself. It means it's fundamentally free and open — you don't need to ask permission or beg for changes, it is as easy as installing an app, building your own or even changing the system yourself.
OpenTranslate is here.
Working with Fortune 500 localization team design partners, our team of engineers and AI engineers here at ModelFront built an open, AI-native enterprise TMS.
We're giving it away for free. OpenTranslate is fundamentally open. You can read all the source code, and your company can always run it itself for free forever. So this is an irreversible development.
Who supports OpenTranslate?
OpenTranslate is supported by ModelFront.
ModelFront provides AI to check and fix AI translations while keeping human quality. ModelFront outcome-based pricing. So
Think of it like Google supporting Chrome and Android, continuously over decades. With those free and open platforms, you're fundamentally free to use any search engine. Google still has to keep providing the best search engine. Likewise ModelFront has to keep providing the best AI to check and fix AI translations while keeping human quality.
The ModelFront knows how to build good software. We founders and the majority of our team are engineers and AI engineers, with experience building high-scale, critical systems for machine translation, chip design, navigation, HR and adtech inside AI companies like Google, world leaders in chip design and automotive, and Silicon Valley startups, as well as localization. ModelFront has provided AI to Fortune 500 localization teams for a half decade.