How to automate your localization workflow and scale faster with AI

Automating localization helps teams scale global content, accelerate multilingual product releases, and reduce translation costs. Effective localization automation integrates your translation process, content production, and development efforts into workflows that eliminate tedious manual tasks. Here’s how modern teams are doing it, and how platforms like Smartling make automation easier, faster, and more reliable.

What is localization workflow automation?

Localization workflow automation uses software to streamline the flow of content from creation to translation and publication. Instead of manually exporting and importing files or emailing spreadsheets to translators, localization software like Smartling can automate these tasks to continuously keep global content in production.

Localization software can also integrate directly with your CMS, code repository, customer support platforms, and other tools, so translation is built into your tech stack.

In short:
Automation removes the friction of tedious manual tasks from translation, helping teams translate content faster and easier.

Why automate your localization workflow?

Automation solves some of the biggest challenges people responsible for localization face: tedious manual content handoffs, communication bottlenecks, and limited scalability.

By automating localization, teams can achieve:

Faster time to market with continuous translation cycles
Fewer manual handoffs and file management errors
Consistent quality across all languages
More capacity for strategic, high-impact work

Not only are manual processes inconvenient, but they also cost teams precious time and resources. Luxury travel brand Geheime Fluchten reduced the time spent translating new hotel deals by 25% across all languages after using Smartling to automate routine translation tasks. Their editorial teams now use this time to focus on creative, high-impact content instead of file management.

How can automation improve quality and speed?

Automation helps address some of the biggest bottlenecks in localization, like manual content handoffs and QA tasks, streamlining the process and resulting in higher quality global content.

Every time a file needs to be exported, emailed, or manually assigned, the process slows down and teams lose valuable time. Automation removes this friction by setting up automatic tasks within your localization tools that run based on specific triggers.

With Smartling, users can configure workflows so that when content is added or updated, the platform automatically knows what to do next: bundle it into a job, assign it to the right translators, apply quality checks, and deliver the translated version back to your CMS or repository. All of this happens without anyone needing to move files or send an email.

Here’s how automation helps teams move faster while improving consistency:

Automated routing: Manual content assignment can stall projects for hours or even days. Smartling automatically routes content to the right linguists or workflows based on language pair, content type, or subject matter. This eliminates repetitive handoffs and keeps translation moving continuously.
Real-time quality checks: Built-in quality rules can automatically flag missing tags, glossary inconsistencies, or punctuation errors. These checks run as part of the workflow, preventing issues before they reach production.
Dynamic workflows: Smartling lets users design decision-based workflows that adapt in real time. For example, content with a high translation memory match can skip unnecessary steps, while brand-new strings can be routed for editing or review.
End-to-end process automation: Once translations are approved, Smartling can automatically publish content back to connected systems like your CMS, app, or marketing automation platform — ensuring global content stays up to date without manual uploads.

Common tasks you can automate with Smartling

Localization automation can take on hundreds of repetitive tasks that would otherwise slow your team down. Some of the most common include:

Detecting new or updated content
Creating and assigning translation jobs automatically
Applying translation memory and glossary terms
Routing content to the right linguist or workflow
Performing automatic QA checks for consistency and formatting
Publishing translated content back to your CMS, website, or app
Sending notifications or status updates to stakeholders
Tracking progress and reporting on translation performance

By automating these everyday tasks, Smartling keeps localization running continuously in the background while your teams focus on strategic, high-impact work.

A great example of this is Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange that automated its content routing and delivery process with Smartling. By removing manual steps, Gemini was able to double its translation speed and maintain accuracy across complex, regulated content.

How to automate your localization workflow step by step

1. Centralize your translation process

Without a centralized system, localization often feels chaotic. Teams manage translations across multiple tools, spreadsheets, and email threads, making it difficult to track progress or maintain consistency. Files are duplicated, deadlines slip, and translation memory isn’t reused efficiently, which drives up costs and slows releases.

A translation management system (TMS) solves these problems by bringing every part of the translation process into one automated platform. Instead of manually tracking jobs or sending files back and forth, a TMS handles the entire workflow automatically: assigning tasks, applying translation memory, enforcing brand terminology, and routing content through the right review steps.

With Smartling’s TMS, teams can:

Automate project management tasks such as job creation, content routing, and translator assignments.
Ensure translation consistency by applying translation memory and glossaries automatically across all languages.
Track quality and performance in real time with built-in analytics and reporting.
Collaborate efficiently with translators, reviewers, and stakeholders in one shared workspace.

By centralizing translation management in Smartling, you eliminate redundant manual work, reduce human error, and gain full visibility into every step of the localization process. The result is faster turnaround times, consistent quality, and a workflow that scales effortlessly as your global content grows.

2. Connect your content systems

One of the biggest roadblocks to efficiency in localization is disconnected systems. Without integration, teams often have to export files from their CMS or design tool, send them over email or chat, wait for translation, then manually re-upload and publish the localized versions. These steps create delays, version-control errors, and endless tool switching, all of which slow releases down and drain resources.

Integrating your translation software with the rest of your tech stack removes those manual tasks. When systems are connected, new content automatically flows into Smartling for translation and returns to your source system once it’s complete. This automation keeps localization continuous and reduces the time between content creation and global publication.

With localization software like Smartling, you can integrate translation with the rest of your tech stack in two key ways:

Connectors: Localization software like Smartling often offer pre-built connectors that integrate directly with your CMS, marketing automation platform, code repository, or design tool. They can automatically detect new or updated content, send it to your TMS for translation, and deliver the finished translations back to the right location without human intervention. For example, when you update a webpage in Contentful or a help article in Zendesk, a TMS like Smartling can automatically pull in the new content, translate it, and publish the localized version back to your system.
Website translation proxies: As the fastest and most cost-effective way to deploy multilingual websites, a website translation proxy like Smartling’s Global Delivery Network can automate the delivery of translated content.

Translation proxies like the GDN sit between your website and the end user’s device to deliver translated content instantly when it’s requested. When a visitor requests a page in another language, the GDN immediately serves the localized version by swapping out the English content with the professionally translated version in real time. The result is a faster, more cost-effective way to maintain multilingual websites without adding complexity for your development team.

By connecting your content systems with your localization software, you can eliminate the friction of manual file management and create an always-on localization process that runs in the background while your teams focus on higher-value work.

3. Set up dynamic workflows

Even with a centralized translation platform, many localization teams still face one persistent bottleneck: manually deciding where each piece of content should go next. Should it go straight to publishing, through internal review, or to a human linguist for editing? These small decisions, repeated thousands of times, create delays, inconsistency, and wasted effort.

Dynamische Workflows solve this problem by automating those decisions. Instead of relying on people to move content through each step, dynamic workflows automatically route content based on pre-set rules. This keeps projects moving continuously, ensures the right level of review for each asset, and eliminates repetitive manual oversight.

With Smartling, dynamic workflows are flexible and fully configurable. Using Decision Steps, you can define conditions that determine how content moves through the process, such as translation memory (TM) match percentage, content type, or visibility level.

Zum Beispiel:

A string with a 95 percent TM match can automatically skip the internal review step and move straight to publishing.
A string with a lower fuzzy match can be routed to a human translator or editing workflow for a closer review.

Dynamic workflows allow you to “set it and forget it.” Once configured, Smartling automatically applies the right workflow logic to every new piece of content, ensuring that translation always follows the most efficient path. The result is less time spent managing individual jobs, fewer bottlenecks, and a localization process that runs seamlessly in the background.

4. Make translation part of the developer workflow

For developers, localization can often feel like an extra step that slows down the release process. Without automation, engineering teams have to manually extract strings, share files with localization managers, wait for translations, and then reinsert those translations back into the codebase. These handoffs interrupt development cycles, delay releases, and make global launches harder to scale.

Integrating translation directly into your development workflow eliminates these bottlenecks. When localization happens alongside development, content moves automatically from your code repository into the translation platform and back again, keeping builds global-ready without extra effort.

Smartling makes this seamless. Developers can use Smartling’s API, CLI, SDKs, and webhooks to embed localization into their development workflow. Translation jobs can be triggered automatically with each build, pull request, or feature branch, ensuring that new strings are captured, translated, and deployed without manual intervention.

Instead of treating translation as an afterthought, this approach helps translation become an integrated part of your product lifecycle, so every update, feature, or UI change is ready for global users the moment it ships.

Bonus: Combine automation with AI translation to scale faster

Once your localization workflow is automated, AI translation can help you expand your content output without increasing cost or complexity. Automation ensures content moves efficiently through the process, while AI translation accelerates production for high-volume or fast-moving content types such as documentation, e-commerce listings, or support articles.

Smartling’s AI translation capabilities use a combination of large language models (LLMs) and machine translation (MT) to provide fast, high-quality results that fit seamlessly into your automated workflows. You decide which content types are best suited for AI, and Smartling automatically applies the right translation method and quality checks along the way.

Wellness brand Therabody offers a great example of this approach. After replacing manual translation processes with Smartling’s AI-powered workflows, the company cut translation costs by 60 percent and achieved a 99.7 percent on-time delivery rate. By combining automation and AI translation, their localization team now focuses human translators on creative and brand-critical content while letting AI handle large-scale, repetitive material.

Together, automation and AI translation give teams the flexibility to scale localization efficiently, maintaining quality while reducing turnaround time and cost.

FAQ

How can I start automating localization without disrupting my current workflow?

Begin by testing out automated workflows on low-visibility content or internal documentation. Smartling lets you pilot automation safely, then expand once you see measurable results.

Will automation replace my translators?

No. Automation doesn’t replace translators, it supports them.

Automation in Smartling is about simplifying the process that surrounds translation, not the act of translation itself. Instead of manually exporting files, emailing updates, or tracking project progress across multiple tools, automation enables users to configure automatic tasks that run based on specific triggers. The platform then handles those actions, such as bundling content into a job, assigning it to the right translator, or publishing completed translations, without human intervention.

This means translators can focus entirely on what they do best: translating and refining content for quality, nuance, and brand voice. Automation takes care of the repetitive steps that slow the process down.

It’s also important to understand the difference between automation and machine translation. Machine translation (MT) is one component of automated translation workflows, but Smartling automation itself is broader. It automates everything that happens around translation — content routing, workflow management, quality checks, and publishing — so content flows smoothly from creation to delivery.

With Smartling, automation doesn’t replace human translators. It empowers them to work faster, maintain consistency, and focus on producing higher-quality translations at scale.

Can developers manage localization directly?

Yes. With Smartling’s API, CLI, SDKs, and webhooks, developers can integrate translation into CI/CD pipelines and trigger jobs automatically on every code push.

Bringing it all together

Localization automation is no longer optional, it’s how global companies scale. Smartling empowers teams to automate translation intelligently by combining AI, automation, and human expertise to deliver faster, more cost-effective localization.

If you’re ready to see how Smartling can help you automate your localization workflow and use AI to scale your global growth, download the Navigating the Shift ebook.

Reagan White

Localization expert

Reagan White is a localization expert with experience helping global brands streamline translation workflows and scale multilingual content. With a background in translation technology and international content strategy, She writes about localization automation, AI translation, and best practices for building efficient global operations.