Blog Articles

Global events are designed to bring the best ideas into one room. But when that room operates in one language only, many attendees are not participating at full capacity.

They may understand the presentation. They may follow the discussion. They may even speak the event language well. But understanding is not the same as thinking freely, responding confidently, or contributing with nuance.

Speech to speech translation is the process of converting spoken words in one language into spoken words in another language. Instead of asking participants to read translated text, the system delivers translated audio that helps people follow a meeting, event or presentation in their preferred language. 

The European Union Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act) is changing how organisations think about artificial intelligence. For businesses using AI speech translation, AI-powered live captions, subtitles or post-event AI-translated recordings, transcripts or summaries in meetings and events, the key question is no longer only “does it work?” It is also “is it clear, responsible,  compliant, and appropriate for the setting? 

In 2026, global reach is no longer measured only by audience size. Instead, it is defined by how well organisations communicate across languages in real time, across channels, and at scale. 

Town hall meetings are one of the most important communication formats in large organisations. They bring leadership and employees together, often across regions, time zones and languages. However, the challenge is clear. If people cannot follow the message in real time, the town hall stops being inclusive and starts becoming fragmented. 

For enterprises, organisations and institutions, the real challenge of multilingual communication is not providing translation, but delivering language access in a way that is dependable, scalable and aligned with enterprise‑level expectations.

As organisations align priorities for 2026, one assumption is increasingly taken for granted: that AI translation has largely solved multilingual communication. In enterprise environments, this assumption rarely holds.

Nowadays, as globalisation and the internet continue to expand, it is increasingly uncommon to host an event (whether a meeting, conference, corporate town hall, hybrid webinar, or summit) where everyone involved speaks the same language. On the contrary, most meetings, whether high- or low-stakes, bring together people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Yet many event organisers still default to a single language — often English — under the assumption that "most participants will understand it." This assumption is not only exclusionary for participants who may feel inhibited or lost in the conversation; it also carries hidden costs for organisations and the outcomes of the event. As language partners such as Interprefy have seen time and again, opting out of full multilingual support is, in reality, a business risk.

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.