AI interpretation has advanced rapidly in the last few years, reshaping how organisations think about accessibility and multilingual engagement. From instant captions to automated speech translation, the technology now promises speed, reach, and efficiency at a scale unimaginable a decade ago.
But the question many event organisers are asking as 2026 approaches is not whether AI is possible. It’s whether AI is trustworthy.
For cross-border conferences, stakeholder engagements, high-stakes announcements, and hybrid events, inaccurate or insecure translation isn't a minor inconvenience — it's a business risk. And new research from Interprefy confirms that several critical considerations continue to shape how confidently organisations approach AI-driven speech translation.
The findings reveal three critical barriers: accuracy concerns, security doubts, and significant gaps in understanding how multilingual solutions actually work. Together, these insightfully illustrate why many organisations are still cautious about relying solely on AI for real-time event translation — and why enterprise-grade solutions require a different approach.
Events today operate within complex, multinational environments where strategic communication must be precise, consistent, and accessible across every stakeholder group. Whether aligning regional leadership teams, briefing international investors, or coordinating product and regulatory updates across multiple markets, organisations now require multilingual capabilities that support operational clarity, minimise risk, and maintain message integrity. Successful event organisers understand that when language access fails, alignment, decision-making, and stakeholder confidence are compromised at scale.
Building on this reality, Interprefy’s latest market research report offers a precise view of how multilingual communication is now being assessed within complex enterprise environments. The findings show that experienced event organisers across the Asia Pacific region (APAC) and the Middle East are scrutinising AI-powered audio translation not as a technological novelty but as a potential point of operational vulnerability. Reliability, confidentiality, and strategic suitability have become the primary lenses through which these capabilities are evaluated.
For executive teams, accuracy is not a technical metric — it is a strategic dependency. When critical information is being communicated across multiple regions and languages, even minor inaccuracies can alter intent, introduce misalignment, or misrepresent organisational priorities. Interprefy’s research makes this tension explicit: 55% of organisers in the Middle East and 47% in APAC identify concerns about the accuracy of AI-generated captions as their primary barrier to adoption.
This finding is particularly significant for leaders overseeing global operations, investor relations, regulated activities, or cross-functional strategic programmes. In these contexts, real-time interpretation must not only transmit information, but also preserve meaning, context, and authority. Senior event organisers increasingly recognise that AI performs more optimal when deployed within a well-defined, well-controlled ecosystem.
For global organisations, multilingual communication is inseparable from information security. Whether an event involves strategic planning, financial reporting, M&A discussions, or sensitive internal updates, translation workflows become part of the organisation’s data-processing surface. Interprefy’s research underscores how visible this issue has become in multilingual events: 49% of organisers in the Middle East and 41% in APAC express concern about confidential discussions being processed or stored by AI systems.
For organisations and companies, this is not a theoretical risk. It intersects directly with data governance, regulatory compliance, and the organisation's broader security posture. Many translation technologies — particularly consumer-grade or general-purpose AI solutions — operate through opaque data pipelines, unclear retention policies, or training models that reuse customer content. These practices create vulnerabilities that are incompatible with enterprise standards, especially for organisations operating in highly regulated sectors, managing proprietary information, or engaging in cross-border communications subject to global or region-specific compliance obligations.
Consequently, what senior event organisers and executives are seeking is not simply "AI speech translation," but controlled AI interpretation — solutions architected with transparent data flows, zero-retention guarantees, hardened security protocols, and verifiable compliance frameworks. In this model, trust is not assumed; it is engineered through design. The security posture of the multilingual layer must match the security posture of the organisation itself.
Forward-thinking leaders are therefore evaluating multilingual technology with the same scrutiny applied to any other enterprise-critical system: who can access the data, how it is processed, where it is stored (if at all), and whether the provider can demonstrate ongoing adherence to global security standards. This shift marks a significant evolution in how AI is assessed — not as an isolated tool, but as part of the organisation’s broader risk surface.
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While accuracy and security dominate executive discussions, Interprefy's research reveals a third, often underestimated factor influencing AI adoption in multilingual communication: awareness. A significant proportion of organisers across APAC and the Middle East remain unfamiliar with the core technologies underpinning modern multilingual delivery. Nearly 49% in APAC and 45% in the Middle East report limited familiarity with Remote Simultaneous Interpretation, and 46% in APAC and 38% in the Middle East say the same about live multilingual captions.
For event organisers, this signals an operational challenge rather than a knowledge deficit. When key stakeholders lack clarity on how different multilingual technologies function — and which are designed for which types of communication — it becomes harder to make informed, risk-aligned decisions. In practice, this can result in either overreliance on tools that are not suited to the communication task, or underutilisation of enterprise-grade capabilities that would materially improve accuracy, security, and cost efficiency.
Executives increasingly recognise that multilingual communication demands the same level of architectural thinking applied to IT systems, cybersecurity, or data governance. Without a shared understanding of what each technology delivers — and what it does not — organisations inadvertently introduce inconsistency into their communication workflows. This inconsistency can weaken internal alignment, dilute external messaging, and make global delivery unnecessarily complex.
The organisations moving ahead most effectively are those investing in the foundational knowledge and frameworks required to govern multilingual communication strategically. By establishing clear internal guidance, defining decision criteria, and ensuring teams understand the capabilities and limitations of different AI-driven solutions, leaders create the conditions for reliable, scalable, and secure multilingual communication across their entire event portfolio.
In global organisations, multilingual communication must operate with the same reliability, governance, and architectural discipline as any other enterprise-critical system. As expectations increase across regions and stakeholder groups, event organisers and executives are moving away from binary decisions — AI versus traditional interpretation — and instead evaluating which method is operationally appropriate for each communication context.
This shift reflects a broader recognition: different communication scenarios carry different levels of strategic exposure. An investor briefing, a leadership off-site, a technical product announcement, and a large-scale public event all present distinct requirements in terms of accuracy, speed, confidentiality, and cost efficiency.
To support more informed decision-making, executives are increasingly using structured evaluation frameworks to assess the suitability of each multilingual method based on risk profile, audience composition, and strategic intent.
Below is an example of how global organisations are mapping their multilingual communication needs against operational requirements:
Multilingual Delivery Methods: Enterprise Evaluation Matrix
| Communication Scenario | Primary Requirement | What Organisations Should Look For in a Solution | Strategic Implications |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leadership & Board Communication |
Absolute message precision + confidentiality | High-governance workflows, controlled access, secure speech translation with configurable accuracy settings | Protects strategic intent, reduces alignment risk, maintains executive credibility |
| Investor Relations & Financial Reporting |
Fidelity, compliance, auditability | Zero-retention AI translation, traceable workflows, encrypted delivery, compliance-aligned captioning | Avoids disclosure risk, maintains regulatory integrity, safeguards market perception |
| Company-wide Meetings, Town Halls & L&D |
Consistency + scalability | AI-driven multilingual captions, stable high-volume delivery, seamless platform integration | Ensures inclusion, strengthens culture, maintains clarity across regions |
| Large Conferences & Public Events |
Reach + operational efficiencyy | High-capacity multilingual translation infrastructure, proven uptime, real-time performance monitoring | Preserves attendee engagement, reduces operational disruption |
| Technical, Product or Regulated Content |
Domain-specific accuracy | Custom terminology support, domain-aware configuration, advanced speech-to-text modelling | Ensures correctness, protects product integrity, avoids regulatory errors |
This type of analytical framework is becoming standard practice inside multinational organisations. It allows leaders to define what “fit-for-purpose” means based on operational risk rather than habit or legacy assumptions, and it ensures multilingual delivery functions as part of a broader governance model—not a last-mile event detail.
However, for this model to function effectively, organisations need a multilingual partner or language provider capable of meeting enterprise-grade expectations. Event organisers are better off when finding providers that can offer:
Secure, fully transparent data processing with zero-retention policies
Configurable AI-driven speech translation and multilingual captioning that can be trained in advance with specific vocabulary depending on the session or event
High-context, high-accuracy delivery models for leadership and investor communication
Scalable architecture capable of supporting large audience volumes reliably
Domain-aware linguistic configuration for technical or regulated content
Interoperability with existing enterprise communication ecosystems
Operational support teams with deep multilingual expertise
Companies like Interprefy exemplify this approach — offering enterprise-ready multilingual infrastructure, governance-aligned workflows, and the technical and advisory capabilities required to integrate multilingual communication seamlessly into complex global environments. They provide the architecture, expertise, and operational discipline that allow organisations to deploy multilingual communication with confidence, clarity, and consistency across all markets.
The organisations operating most confidently today are those that recognise multilingual communication as a strategic capability and partner with experts who understand the full spectrum of operational, technical, and governance requirements. With the right guidance and infrastructure in place, enterprises can ensure that every message — regardless of language, format, or audience size — is delivered with the precision and control required in a global operating environment.
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This type of structured analysis is becoming standard practice inside global enterprises. It enables leaders to articulate what “good” looks like based on operational risk, not preference or habit. It also ensures that multilingual communication is treated as part of a broader governance model rather than a one-off event requirement.
The most mature organisations are using this lens to design multilingual strategies that are robust, consistent, and future-proof — ensuring that the technologies selected for any given communication support accuracy, security, and strategic clarity at scale.
For event organisers and executives, building trust in multilingual communication is not about adding more tools—it is about ensuring the systems in place deliver accuracy, security, and alignment with organisational standards. The focus is shifting from whether to use AI to how to deploy it responsibly across different communication environments.
Organisations that are advancing fastest are taking a structured, governance-led approach. The most effective steps include:
Assign clear responsibility for evaluating multilingual needs, approving workflows, and ensuring that communication standards are upheld across all events. This prevents fragmentation and protects consistency.
Classify events — strategic, operational, public-facing, or regulatory — and align each category with the necessary level of accuracy, confidentiality, and verification. This ensures the right solution is applied to the right communication scenario.
Prioritise transparent data handling, zero-retention policies, enterprise certifications, and configurable workflows. This ensures the multilingual layer strengthens rather than complicates existing security and compliance frameworks.
With many organisers still unfamiliar with core multilingual technologies, leaders are improving internal literacy — clarifying terminology, defining best practices, and ensuring teams understand the capabilities and limitations of AI-driven real-time translation.
Forward-looking organisations treat multilingual delivery as part of broader strategic planning — from internal communication and global expansion to ESG and accessibility commitments. This elevates multilingual capability from an event requirement to a strategic enabler.
For event organisers and executives, multilingual delivery has become a strategic capability rather than a logistical task. Interprefy’s regional research reinforces that considerations such as accuracy, security, and organisational readiness now sit at the centre of how leaders evaluate AI’s role in their communication environments. The priority is no longer the adoption of AI itself, but ensuring it operates within a controlled, transparent framework that protects message fidelity and supports the organisation’s risk posture.
Organisations that approach multilingual communication with the same discipline applied to cybersecurity, compliance, and data governance are best positioned to maintain clarity across regions and ensure stakeholders receive information exactly as intended. Those that embed multilingual capability into their broader communication strategy—rather than treating it as an event-by-event add-on—will strengthen alignment, reduce operational exposure, and build the trust required to operate confidently in an increasingly interconnected environment.