Using AI to Speed Up Content Translation Across Locales

You published an English blog post last Monday and the French and Dutch versions are still not live because the translation vendor has a five-day turnaround. Your competitors have the same post translated and ranking in French already. AI-assisted translation in ContentGrid does not replace human review, but it cuts the time from publish to first draft from days to minutes.

How AI Translation Works in ContentGrid

ContentGrid's AI writing tools are available on every rich text and long text field. When you open an entry and select a field, the AI toolbar appears with options including Translate to.... Select the target locale and ContentGrid generates a translation based on the source field content. The AI is aware of your content type context: it knows whether it is translating a product description or a blog article and adjusts tone accordingly.

• AI translation works on text fields, rich text fields, and meta description fields.
• It does not translate slugs, dates, or structured reference fields: those require manual handling.
• You can translate one field at a time or use the bulk translate option on an entire entry.
• The translated draft populates the field in the target locale, leaving the source locale unchanged.

Building a Translation Workflow

Define a clear workflow so AI translation integrates smoothly with your team:

• Writer publishes the English version and sets the entry status to needs-translation.
• A ContentGrid webhook fires and notifies the localisation team in Slack with a link to the entry.
• The localisation team opens the entry, switches to the target locale, and runs AI translation on each field.
• They review and edit the AI draft, typically 15–20 minutes per article rather than two to three hours for a manual translation.
• They set the locale status to translated and notify the reviewer.

Improving AI Translation Quality

Raw AI translation output varies in quality. Improve it by giving the AI more context:

• Add a Brand Voice instruction in your ContentGrid AI settings: a short paragraph describing your tone, vocabulary preferences, and terms to avoid.
• Add a glossary of product names and technical terms that must not be translated (e.g., keep ContentGrid as-is in all languages).
• Flag recurring errors in AI output using the feedback button: ContentGrid incorporates corrections to improve future translations for your space.
• Keep source content short and direct. AI translation quality drops on long, complex sentences, which is good writing advice anyway.

When to Use AI vs Human Translation

AI translation is not suitable for everything:

• Use AI for blog posts, feature descriptions, and documentation: content where speed matters and a human will review before publish.
• Use human translators for legal text, pricing pages, and high-stakes marketing copy where errors carry real risk.
• Use AI for first drafts on everything else, then have a native speaker do a 10-minute review pass.

The combination of AI draft plus human review gets you to published content three to four times faster than waiting for a full human translation, at a fraction of the cost. For teams publishing in four or more locales, this is the only approach that keeps all locales reasonably current.