Will AI replace translators?
For most routine work, it already has. Translators score 20.0/100 on the AI Resistance Index (Commoditized). Machine translation now produces the first draft of much commercial text, and many translators are paid to post-edit that output rather than translate from scratch. Work that carries legal, medical or literary risk still needs a person who can answer for every word.
Higher is safer. Scored on six structural dimensions, weighted as shown below.
How the score breaks down
Each dimension is rated 1 (AI holds every advantage) to 5 (strong structural protection). A rating's contribution is (rating − 1) ÷ 4 × weight, so a 1 contributes nothing and a 5 contributes the full weight.
| Dimension | Weight | Rating | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automation Replaceability | 25% | 1 / 5 | 0 |
| Regulatory & Liability Friction | 20% | 2 / 5 | 5 |
| Human Judgment Density | 15% | 3 / 5 | 7.5 |
| Physical-World Coupling | 15% | 1 / 5 | 0 |
| Trust & Relationship Lock-In | 15% | 3 / 5 | 7.5 |
| AI Capital Intensity | 10% | 1 / 5 | 0 |
| Total | 100% | 20.0 |
Points are exact; the scoring engine rounds the total to one decimal.
Why each dimension scores the way it does
Rated 1, the minimum. Converting written text from one language to another is the task machine translation was built for, and BLS describes translators reviewing software-generated text in a process called post-editing. Product descriptions, manuals, support articles and routine business documents increasingly go through software first, which reduces the human role to checking and correcting for most commercial volume.
Rated 2. BLS says general certification is not required for translators, though some employers prefer it, and most states require certification for court interpreters. Certified translations of legal and immigration documents, and medical or pharmaceutical texts where an error can harm someone, still need an accountable person. Outside those niches there is little legal friction, which keeps this at 2.
Rated 3. Good translation is full of judgment: idioms, humour, legal terms with no exact equivalent, and tone that has to land in another culture. BLS describes the job as converting concepts, style and tone, not just words. Software has improved at all of this, but marketing, literature and diplomacy still reward a translator who understands what a text is trying to do.
Rated 1, the minimum. Translation is done on a computer and delivered as a file, often by freelancers working from anywhere for clients they never meet; about 28% of interpreters and translators are self-employed, per BLS. Interpreters in courtrooms, hospitals and meetings do have a physical role, but that is a separate job from written translation.
Rated 3. Publishers, law firms and agencies often keep using a translator whose work they trust, especially for a long series, a recurring client or a sensitive subject, and literary translators are sometimes credited by name. For most commercial work, though, clients buy from agencies and platforms on price and speed, and loyalty to an individual is weak.
Rated 1. High-quality machine translation is cheap or free, built into browsers, phones and office software, and available through low-cost interfaces for developers. Agencies and businesses can add it to their workflows without building anything themselves, so nothing about competing with routine translation requires capital that only large firms can afford.
Which translation tasks AI takes first
BLS lists the core duties of interpreters and translators. These are the written-translation tasks, sorted by exposure:
Most exposed to AI
- Producing first drafts of commercial and technical text
- Compiling glossaries and terminology databases
- Translating product descriptions, manuals and support content
- Localising routine website and app text
Most durable
- Post-editing and certifying machine output where errors carry risk
- Translating legal, medical and regulatory documents that need an accountable signer
- Adapting marketing and literary text for tone and culture
- Advising clients on what should and should not be machine-translated
The labor market today
| Median annual pay (May 2025) | $60,170 |
| Jobs, interpreters and translators (2025) | 73,900 |
| Projected change, 2025–35 | 2% (slower than average) |
| Openings per year, on average | ≈6,000 |
| Self-employed | 28% |
BLS projects employment of interpreters and translators to grow 2% from 2025 to 2035, slower than average, with about 6,000 openings a year. It says computer tools, including AI, are making translators' work more efficient, though many jobs cannot be fully automated because software cannot yet match human translators in most cases.
BLS also expects demand from a diverse population, globalisation and national security needs, and growth in sign language interpreting. Those sources of demand lean toward interpreting, which is spoken and often in person, more than toward written translation, which is where machine translation hits hardest.
How to raise your resistance
- Move into regulated translation. Certified legal, immigration, medical and pharmaceutical translation keeps a named, accountable person in the loop. Those clients are the least willing to trust raw machine output.
- Sell post-editing as quality control. Position yourself as the person who makes machine translation safe to publish, checking terminology, catching errors and signing off, rather than competing on price per word.
- Add interpreting. Spoken and sign language interpreting, especially in courts and healthcare, is in-person work where BLS sees steady demand and where certification matters.
- Specialise in a subject, not just a language pair. Deep knowledge of patents, clinical trials, finance or games makes you the expert reviewer a client needs rather than a commodity supplier.
This score rates the occupation as a whole. Your exposure depends on what you actually do all day. The free Job Safety score asks about your specific role and day-to-day work, then rates your role on the same six dimensions in about a minute.
Score my job — freeOwn a business in this field? See how translation agencies score: 16.2/100
Questions people ask
Will AI replace translators?
For routine commercial text, largely yes: machine translation now produces the first draft, and many translators are paid to edit it. BLS still projects 2% growth for interpreters and translators from 2025 to 2035, because high-stakes work and interpreting still need people.
Are interpreters safer than translators?
Generally, yes. Interpreting is spoken, often in person, and in courts and hospitals it is tied to certification and accountability. Written translation is the part of the field software does best.
Is translation still a viable career?
Yes, in a narrower form. The median pay for interpreters and translators was $60,170 in May 2025. The durable paths are regulated subjects, certified work, interpreting and quality control of machine output.
Compare with
Sources and method
Ratings are Dawnstar Exploration's structural assessment using the six-dimension AI Resistance Index framework; labor-market figures are quoted from the sources above as published. This page describes an occupation, not any individual.