AI-powered book translation services are proliferating globally, with new platforms claiming to unlock previously inaccessible international markets for independent authors and small publishers. But as these services scale rapidly, questions about copyright protection and translation quality are emerging alongside enthusiasm from publishers quietly experimenting behind the scenes.
GlobeScribe, launched by former Bloodhound Books co-founders Fred Freeman and Betsy Reavley, offers fiction translations in five languages for $100 per title. The Cambridge, England-based company has processed several hundred translations since its launch and reports enthusiastic—if mostly private—reception from publishers. “I don’t think I have had a single person saying, ‘I don’t like AI, I don’t think AI translation is the way forward,’” Freeman said. “People are largely wanting to keep a little bit on the down low about it.”
Chennai, India-based Ailaysa, which has 25 years of experience in commercial translation and 15 years in Tamil-language publishing, has processed over 200 books and charges approximately $1 per thousand words for AI translation. The company emphasizes “contextual translation” that treats entire books as unified works rather than sentence-by-sentence conversions.
Both companies explicitly reject the productivity narrative. “We don’t see AI just as a tool that is reducing time,” said Ailaysa co-founder Senthil Nathan. “This for the first time creates an instant or immediate global marketplace.” Freeman concurred. “With 98% of English-language books never translated,” he said, “that’s a massive market.”
The use of AI to translate comes with complications around copyright. In the U.S., Copyright Office guidance states that works generated by AI without meaningful human authorship are not eligible for copyright protection. In the U.K., the 1988 Copyright and Patents Act “specifically states that any electronically generated piece of literature is copyrightable,” Freeman said.
Freeman believes this creates “a preferential framework” for GlobeScribe and suggests U.S.-based competitors may be at a disadvantage. “The [U.S.] publisher has paid for the AI translation, and they then run the risk of entering the public domain,” he said.
Both platforms emphasize that human translators are critical. GlobeScribe uses “multi-step prompting” with genre-specific parameters and plans to publish unedited AI translations of Frankenstein and Pride and Prejudice to demonstrate quality. Freeman acknowledged results are “98%” rather than perfect.
Ailaysa positions human translators as pre- and post-production editors. “Even 99% accuracy is not sufficient for books,” Nathan said. “In 300 pages, you’ll be having 900 words that are wrong. Typically, nobody will publish your book with that many errors.” The company has translated titles, including Nadim Sadek’s Shimmer, Don’t Shake, into Greek, Tamil, Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo.
GlobeScribe targets backlist titles and European markets, particularly Germany, which Freeman describes as “less saturated” than English-language markets. Ailaysa focuses on Asian and African “low-resource languages” with less available training data. Clients include U.K.-based Mensch Publishing and Israeli distributor Ebook Pro.
Freeman revealed that the Big Five publishers are conducting trials with AI translation, but avoiding publicity. Both founders acknowledged that working human translators may object to the premise of AI translation, but maintained their services create new markets rather than displace existing translation work.
