Blackbird
Smarter Content Routing with TAUS EPIC and Blackbird
Build automated workflows that evaluate your machine translations, fix errors on the fly, and route content across your existing tech stack.
CMS
Blackbird
TAUS EPIC
TMS
Human
Adding an Independent Quality Guardrail
THE CHALLENGE
Localization requires complex file movement across CMS, TMS, and MT engines.
THE SOLUTION
Combining Blackbird orchestration with TAUS EPIC adds an automated quality guardrail directly into your existing pipelines.
TODAY, TEAMS ARE REVIEWING
100%
of their translated content, only because they don't have a reliable way to know which machine translations are good enough to publish.
How it works:
QE, APE, and Routing
When you add the TAUS EPIC to your Blackbird workflows ("Birds"), you get access to these AI capabilities:
1. QUALITY ESTIMATION (QE)
An automated filter, not another review queue
Instead of relying on human review for every segment, the QE step acts as an automated filter. TAUS EPIC analyzes the source text and the machine translation without needing a human reference, assigning a confidence score (from 0 to 1) to each segment.
2. AUTOMATED POST-EDITING (APE)
A low score doesn't have to mean a human
If a segment scores poorly, it doesn't necessarily have to go straight to a human. The APE step uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to automatically attempt to fix fluency or terminology errors. You can even provide your own translation memories and glossaries so the AI applies your specific brand voice to the corrections.
3. CONDITIONAL ROUTING
The score becomes a decision your workflow can act on
Because Blackbird understands the QE scores generated by EPIC, you can build logic into your workflow.
> 0.86
Blackbird pushes it directly to your CMS.
< 0.86
Even after an APE fix, Blackbird routes it to a human linguist in your TMS.
0.86 is an example threshold — you set your own.
See It in Action: An Example Workflow
Because Blackbird handles file format conversions, you can connect these tools without writing custom code.
01
Trigger
Your CMS
A new article is published in your CMS (like Contentful).
02
Translate
BLACKBIRD → YOUR TMS
Blackbird routes the file to your TMS (like Phrase or memoQ) to be pre-translated by an MT engine.
03
Evaluate (QE)
TAUS EPIC
The translated file is sent to TAUS EPIC, which scores each segment's quality.
04
Edit (APE)
TAUS EPIC
Segments that fall below your acceptable threshold are automatically post-edited by EPIC to improve the score.
05
The Decision
BLACKBIRD, ON YOUR CRITERIA
Blackbird reviews the final scores and routes them to the next step. You decide what that step is, depending on the QE score.
ABOVE YOUR THRESHOLD
Pushed directly back to your CMS.
STILL NEEDS A HUMAN
Sent to a linguist's queue in your TMS.
06
Notify
Slack
Your team gets a quick update via Slack that the workflow is complete.
WATCH IT RUN
Blackbird, XTM and TAUS, end to end
Here's an example of how translations are managed across all three tools — the same QE, APE and routing steps, running on a real stack.
Ready to build your own workflow?
Fill out the form below to get started, and we'll reach out to schedule a brief discovery call.