Interpreters or AI?

A simple way to think about multilingual access for meetings, events, and audiences.

Guideline

Professional interpreters remain essential for many situations.

Expert interpreters are highly skilled professionals. For high-level meetings, diplomatic exchanges, legal or medical settings, sensitive negotiations, and events where nuance, trust, and accountability are central, they continue to have an important place.

At the same time, AI interpreting has reached a high level and can create accessibility in meetings and events where interpretation was not possible before. It can open the room to people who would otherwise be excluded by language, hearing accessibility, cost, or availability.

A useful orientation

  • If you are hiring professional interpreters for high-level meetings, continue to do so.
  • For broader access, public meetings, lectures, training, routine events, and multilingual inclusion, AI can be an excellent solution.
  • Some events may also combine both: professional interpreters where needed, AI where it expands access.

Where AI can make access possible

These are the kinds of situations where AI interpreting can add languages, captions, and participation without replacing expert interpreters in high-level settings.

Public meetings in the Canary Islands

You are a local council in the Canary Islands. The administrative language is Spanish, but many foreign residents live in your municipality. You want public meetings to be available in English, French, and German. This is a perfect use of AI.

A culture festival in Southern France

You are a tourism association in Southern France. Your town organizes lectures and presentations at a small culture festival. Everything has always been in French, but you want tourists visiting the region to follow along in Spanish and English. This is a perfect use of AI.

Cultural events in Rome

You are a cultural association in Rome. You want your events to be accessible to deaf or hard of hearing people, and to foreigners living in the city. You cannot afford expert interpreters and have always worked only in Italian, excluding potential participants. AI is perfect for this.

Bottom line

Experts remain important. AI expands access.

If your current interpreter setup is serving high-level demand, it remains a strong choice. In many other cases, where cost, availability, language coverage, or hearing accessibility have limited participation, Interpreter24 makes multilingual access practical.