Reviewing AI output is not proofreading, it is a full quality assurance process.
I have heard it many times over the past few years: AI can generate translations in seconds, so why pay for anything more? It is a fair question, and I always answer it honestly. AI translation has improved significantly and can be genuinely useful for certain tasks, particularly where speed and volume matter more than nuance. But it is not yet able to match the quality standards that experienced human linguists provide, especially for marketing, legal or technical content where tone, context and precision are critical.
This is why, whenever a client specifically requests machine translation for budget or timing reasons, I always recommend – and offer – a professional human review as a second step. And reviewing AI output is not simply proofreading. It requires terminology knowledge, context understanding, tone sensitivity and industry awareness. It is a thorough quality assurance process, not a light check.
Companies that skip professional review often discover inconsistencies too late, in a live campaign, a published document, or a product that has already reached the market. I have had clients come back to us to fix exactly these kinds of issues, issues that could have been prevented with a single review stage.
AI is a useful tool, and I work with it. But quality is a process, and that process still requires human expertise at its core.