Every day my inbox is inundated with new AI tools from companies promising to change the way you interact with the world. However, every now and then, an AI tool comes to my attention that actually lives up to its billing, and that's exactly what Translated's Lara does.
As a polyglot, who speaks fluent French, and conversational Italian thanks to my Italian roots and Italian long-term partner, I was fascinated to try Lara, an AI-powered translation tool used by Airbnb, Uber, and more. Translated's new AI translation technology is now available for free personal use, through text input and, even more impressively, Lara Live voice input.
But what makes Lara stand out from the other AI translation tools on the market? Well, Translated says Lara is "better than machine translation, close to the best professional translators." And after using the technology, I think it's fair to say that I'm in complete agreement with this huge claim.
You see, I speak fluent French because I moved to France at the age of 11, and because of my heritage combined with my knowledge of another Latin language, my Italian is pretty decent too. But decent isn't good enough when you're surrounded by Italians speaking faster than the speed of light. My partner was born and raised in Italy, and all of her family still lives there, which means family parties and Christmas dinners can often be incredibly overwhelming for my brain, as I try to keep up with what everyone is talking about.
I decided to give Lara Live a challenge, it's a simple webpage with a button to record audio, and that's about it, so I asked my partner to come through and have a conversation with me in full-blown Italian, speaking as fast as possible. I, on the other hand, would reply back in my thick Scottish accent (most voice assistants struggle with a Scottish voice, often getting confused and completely missing what's actually being said).
After just a few minutes of conversing through Lara Live, I looked at my partner in disbelief. Not only was the AI translation tool picking up everything we were saying, but it was translating perfectly, with no mistakes at all. Even when you name someone or something, like a restaurant, Lara Live is able to perfectly translate - it's honestly wild. At one point in the conversation, my partner's phone vibrated with a voice recording from her mom. We watched in awe as Lara Live was able to easily translate the full audio recording into perfect English.
At first, I thought Lara's marketing team was making bold claims that they couldn't live up to by calling it "The world's most reliable translator" but I honestly can't see any fault in this excellent free-to-use translation service.
AI-specific products have never really made much sense to me. The likes of the Rabbit R1 or the Humane AI pin, are more gimmick than anything useful. But using Lara Live has really got me thinking about the possibilities of an AI translation product that takes traveling by storm. We've already got our smartphones, and Humane AI even had a translation tool built into its pin, but what if the future is next-level AI translation built into earbuds, or hearing aids?
A world where your AirPods can translate voice on the go, using technology like Translated's Lara to instantly analyze and convert conversation into any language on the planet? Now that would be wild!
I've been very skeptical about AI translation tools, because none of the ones I've used prior to today ever seem to work the way I want them to. Lara, however, makes me optimistic for the future of this technology, effectively eliminating language barriers for good, and working efficiently enough to use in a work environment and at the family dinner table.
I now know the next time my brain is frazzled by the constant speed of Italian voices at a family party, I can turn to my friend Lara and ask it to do the heavy lifting for me. Just build it into an iOS app, please, and I'll be set, rather than having to fire up a web browser during our Christmas dinner.
