Live translation
Also called Live Translate, real-time translation, speech translation
AI that translates a spoken conversation as it happens, so 2 people without a shared language can talk.
Live translation chains 3 AI jobs together: speech-to-text hears one person, a model translates, and text-to-speech says it in the other language. The hard part is speed. It has to decide when a sentence has ended, translate it and speak it before the conversation stalls.
It's now in phones, earbuds and video calls, and it has made a real difference to travel, to talking with relatives who speak another language, and to small businesses serving customers they couldn't before.
It still struggles in the same places human translators slow down: names, numbers, jokes, dialects and crosstalk. Speak in short, complete sentences, pause for the translation, and repeat anything important in a different way to check it came across.
For example
At a pharmacy abroad, you speak English into your phone and the pharmacist hears Spanish, then the reverse.
Put it to use
Where you'll meet live translation in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, how to use it there, and the mix-up most people make.
Daily Bytes Plus is in the Android app.