Sudden discovery
Below is the truth: If you use any translation services for your work, school or personal life, you must probably move to translation with LLMS – you will provide about 90 %* of costs with less errors and a more accurate team!
How is this possible? We had perfect translation services over the centuries, so how could the LLM service generally be specialized translation systems? When I faced these numbers for the first time in the previous league that leads research and development efforts, I was skeptical. But after implementing the LLM -based translation and seeing the results directly, the evidence was unreasonable.
It comes to some things: technology and business!
The ancient world of translation
Traditional Translation Services (TTS) USE An OLD Architecture of Statistical Models and AR AT AT A State of “It’s Good Enough and Professional” Customer Base that don’t complain About Translating “Briclayer” to “שכבת לבנים” (Hebrew Translation for “Layer of Bricks” or The Old Example of “מאלף כלבים” (“Dog Trander”) 1000 and ״מאלף״ is traineder).
Why do they accept these mistakes? Because it is likely to be less than 20 % of the situations they face, and until recently – what is their alternative?
The translation errors above were some of the prominent points that we had to deal with in my previous work. I remember sitting at a meeting with a engineer and a field expert, and reviewing another set of the wrong product content. We were paying premium “professional” translations that are still required internal reviews. There should be a better way.
The moment of penetration
There was a lot of tuna about LLMS, and yes, statistical models are still at the end of the day, but there was a truly interesting nerve network framework.
The turning point came when we conducted a test side by side: the same content that was processed through the traditional translation service against the LLM approach. The results were not marginally better – they were transformative (Semitic languages). LLM translations picked up the nuances that our previous service has served in a small part of the cost.
What makes this possible? Three revolutionary changes:
- Understanding the unified languageLLMS is trained today on all data in different languages at one time! The traditional translation models are usually trained for language, but LLMS understand the nuances between different places by setting all languages to the same mathematical space.
- Self -interest mechanisms: The way the LLMS process allows to consider the complete context of what is said, and not only the alternatives to a word separately. For more, check this article.
- EconomyThe infrastructure for spreading the LLM translation is radically different from traditional services.
Why llms is very expensive
The economy behind LLM translation reveals several reasons for the dramatic cost teams:
- Group general expenses costsTraditional translation services include certificate of certificates, compliance with standards, and human review operations in the price of pricing. These administrative layers add great costs that LLMS simply requires to most of the cases of use.
- Architectural efficiencyTTS publishes a complex structure to support a wide range of languages, and often requires multiple specialized models. LLMS supports multiple languages simultaneously with one model, which greatly reduces infrastructure and maintenance costs.
- Search momentumLLMS received the tremendous focus of research and development due to its wide use. There is intense active research on making it “smaller” and smarter through techniques such as quantitative measurement and partial parameter activation (such as Deepseekmoe). This continuous improvement cycle benefits all LLM applications, including translation.
- Current pricing dynamicsIt should be noted that the current LLM pricing is very low for long-term profitability and may increase by 10-15 % if there are no other developments in making models more efficient. Even with this increase, the cost of traditional services will remain large.
The most common translation services will provide you with $ 10 per million letters, on the other hand, LLM is priced by the distinctive symbol, if you take Claude Haiku ($ 0.80/MTOK for inputs and 4 dollars/MTOK output), on average, you will pay about $ 1.26 for the same function (translation of the Hebrew language into English, with an average of 3 – 4 Char).
Scoop the reality of business
It is not all that bright sun! Returning to work, TTS is “guaranteed”, which limits some companies to only transition (although they make mistakes more than 100 % of LLMS, but they are business, not logic).
There is another work aspect that keeps TTS fueling, which is ancient/major companies that cannot easily move from one service to another. I have seen the purchasing teams clinging to the translation contracts simply because “this is how we always did it.”
There is also a gap in language coverage; LLMS, in the near future, will not support all the TTS languages due to the presence of small -feet on the Internet (LLMS learning from the Internet), such as Yiddish or Quechua, which still needs traditional translation services. This creates a need for a real market that LLMS cannot currently address.
Implementation
From my experience, the use of LLMS as translation services in direct production products has its own challenges. We had to develop new quality guarantee and deal with edge cases differently from before.
For the teams looking to implement this approach, I will write an artistic article that discusses the main considerations for the use of LLMS in production.
The future is already here
In the future, many trends have become clear:
- Transition leads the consumerSpecial users have already started giving up TTS because LLMS communicates their original languages without having an explicit translation. This transformation will gradually erode part of the traditional translation market.
- The hybrid solutions are emerging: The pioneering TTS provider will inevitably begin to integrate LLM capabilities and develop mixed solutions that benefit from the strengths of both sides.
- Specialization and perseveranceTTS will remain with us in the long run, and become more specialized in the LLMS. It will not be completely replaced, mainly due to the requirements of ratification, compliance with the standards, and business policy restrictions.
- Pricing developmentThere is a strong possibility that the competitive LLMS prices will reduce the cost of traditional translation services over the next five years. Instead, the specialization may create a unique pricing opportunity for TTS providers (higher price points but with more profits from the smaller market share).
conclusion
The translation scene is a basic transformation as LLMS provides superior results in a small part of the price. While work considerations and specialized needs will keep traditional translation services related to certain contexts, the economic advantages and quality of LLM translation are very convincing.
For most institutions, the question is not whether to move to the translation based on LLM, but when and how to implement it effectively. Companies that adopt this transformation now will gain a competitive advantage and great costs in their global communications.
*Based on the comparison of the costs of translating institutions with LLM solutions, the API equation at current market prices (2025) on the most popular languages on the Internet
