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Amazon is reportedly launching a language translation service that is said will help it compete against the likes of Google and its Google Translate service, and it could be announced sometime before this Fall when Amazon holds its annual re:Invent conference, though at this time there is no confirmation from Amazon on the service or any plans for an announcement. What’s notable is not that Amazon has technology that translates languages, but that it’s reportedly planning to make it available to third-parties through its Amazon Web Services, as Amazon is already said to have language translation tech that it uses for its own purposes internally within the company.
The efforts behind the language translation service that it would be adding to AWS could be led by Alon Lavie who is currently the head of Amazon’s machine translation and research group, and also the co-founder of Safaba, a language translation startup that Amazon acquired back in 2015. If Amazon launches a language translation service for third parties and developers to use as part of the Amazon Web Services package, it’s not clear if Amazon would be charging for the use of the service or if it would simply be included along with rates that are already present.
With a language translation service on the market for developers and third parties it would be the latest use of machine learning technology for the company, adding to the already available text-to-speech and image recognition technology that Amazon has incorporated with AWS. More than just competing with Google Translate, Amazon’s language translation technology would also be competing alongside Microsoft’s Translator service, though because it’s said to be coming with Amazon Web Services and not as a standalone product that will be offered as a consumer-facing service, that competition could be more indirect. Having said that it would also help to set Amazon Web Services apart from rival services from other companies which are also offering cloud computing tools. While it’s possible that Amazon could launch the service as part of AWS before its conference in November, it’s also possible that the re:Invent conference could be the announcement date with plans to launch afterward at some point.