#293 The Straker Fraud; Astra Translation Performance

Florian and Esther discuss what mattered in language solutions and AI over the past few weeks, including key takeaways from SlatorCon San Francisco 2026, where AI ran through discussions across enterprise localization, voice AI, interpreting, data-for-AI, media localization, and venture capital.

Florian covers Smartling’s majority investment from Vitruvian Partners as a positive development after a quieter period for language-related deals. He notes that Smartling plans to use the backing to expand AI translation and agentic localization, accelerate global growth, and pursue acquisitions.

Florian examines early translation benchmarks for OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-6 Astra. He cites sources that find Astra performing well in multilingual performance but still shows some weaknesses on difficult translation tasks. He argues that expert oversight remains important for critical use cases.

Esther breaks down Appen’s first-half results, highlighting strong growth in China driven partly by generative AI projects alongside continued pressure in its global business. She also looks at AI-Media’s continued shift from captioning services toward recurring technology and SaaS revenue.

Florian turns to AMN Healthcare’s language services business, where interpreting volumes were flat, and pricing pressure weighed on revenue. He also addresses Straker’s financial difficulties following the discovery of roughly USD 5m in misappropriated funds.