#195 Unbabel CEO Vasco Pedro on AI Impact and Scaling LangOps

SlatorPod

Vasco Pedro, Co-founder and CEO of language operations platform Unbabel, joins SlatorPod to talk about the transformative year of 2023 and its impact on the language technology landscape.
Vasco discusses the AI boom in 2023, emphasizing the importance of recognizing AI as what he calls a cognitive prosthetic rather than a human replacement. He highlights the need for a new pricing model in translation and localization that accommodates AI solutions and allows for transparency, predictability, and agency for LangOps professionals.
Touching on multilingual content generation, Vasco believes that while AI is making content creation easier, there is still a gap in quality between content creation and translation.
Vasco emphasizes the importance of owning the entire value chain and reducing the complexity of translation processes to provide efficient solutions. He touches on some of Unbabel's features, including UnbabelMT for comparing machine translation options.
The CEO outlines Unbabel's strategic acquisitions of EVS and Bablic, with the goal of expanding into new markets, acquiring clients, and integrating Unbabel's technology effectively.
Vasco talks about taking part in the AI consortium in Portugal's Recovery and Resilience Plan, and how Unbabel is involved in projects such as Project Halo, which aims to develop a brain-to-computer interface for text-based communication with practical implications for conditions like ALS.
When looking towards the future, Vasco emphasizes the importance of focusing on growth and continually improving the product's quality, speed, and cost-effectiveness.

Chapters

1. Intro (00:00:00)

2. Unbabel's LangOps Platform (00:01:25)

3. Impact of AI Boom and LLMs in 2023 (00:06:04)

4. Why Unbabel Owns the Full Supply Chain (00:11:37)

5. Competitive Landscape (00:13:49)

6. Multimodal AI Models in Translation (00:18:48)

7. Multilingual Content Generation (00:20:01)

8. How Unbabel Uses Quality Estimation (00:22:50)

9. UnbabelMT and Unbabel Qi (00:27:27)

10. Unbabel's M&A Strategy (00:32:25)

11. Taking Part in the AI Consortium in Portugal's Recovery and Resilience Plan (00:34:07)

12. Practical Applications of Project Halo (00:36:46)

13. Roadmap and Initiatives for 2024 (00:43:43)