TAUS Conference 2026
The Art of Mastering Intelligence-as-a-Utility
The global language industry has a unique role in protecting business, governments, consumers and citizens from the immense power and ubiquity of intelligence-as-a-utility. Because, if you think about it, it is human language that carries everything that is essential to our existence.
14 - 16 October
Vancouver (Canada)
TAUS Conference 2026
The Art of Mastering Intelligence-as-a-Utility
14 - 16 October
Vancouver (Canada)
Overview
The Theme
Day 1
Wednesday, 14 October
Day 2
Thursday, October 15
Day 3
Friday, October 16
The Art of Mastering Intelligence-as-a-Utility
Intelligence-as-a-utility, like electricity, water, internet, on tap and always on wherever we are, whatever we do. That’s the new reality we find ourselves in after the dust of the AI revolution is settled. The world economy is shaking to its foundations, opening unprecedented opportunities for growth, innovation and disruption. Life and business will never be the same.
But also, the immense power and ubiquity of intelligence-as-a-utility represent a threat of cultural loss and cognitive surrender. True knowledge, the power of nuance and creative ingenuity that have brought human evolution to where it is today begin to lose significance. The global language industry has a unique role in protecting business, governments, consumers and citizens from a massive, ugly ‘equalizer’.
Because, if you think about it, it is human language that carries everything that is essential to our existence.
That’s why we have chosen The Art of Mastering Intelligence-as-a-Utility as the theme of the TAUS Conference in Vancouver.
Keynote Speakers:
For nearly a century, the Government of Canada’s Translation Bureau has been a cornerstone of Canada’s language landscape, combining human expertise and technology to support clear communication. Today, we are architecting a language AI ecosystem where trusted AI tools and skilled language professionals work together to deliver reliable translation services for Canadians, across official, Indigenous, and sign languages. Achieving this vision depends on collaboration across the entire ecosystem.
CEO at Translation Bureau of the Canadian Government
Making AI more useful in day-to-day activities. The way MT (or AI in fact) impacted the translation industry is a model for the rest of the economy to follow. This keynote is about the disruption that comes from the adoption of technology but also the future where the type of work changes and creates more opportunity.
Head of Research at Handshake AI
New session: The Sandbox: Pitch & Polish
Intelligence-as-a-utility makes it tempting to focus only on what is commercially available today. But true breakthrough innovation often starts as a raw, untested concept or a creative workflow hack. This energetic, collaborative session turns our audience from passive listeners into active innovators. Instead of viewing polished product demos, attendees will live-hack, stress-test, and co-create raw, unbuilt industry solutions pitched by peers—spanning human-in-the-loop upgrades, API connector fixes, and AI guardrails. Together, the room will refine these concepts, culminating in a grand finale pitch-off on the main stage to crown the ultimate crowd-sourced innovation.
Want to submit your raw pitch for the 120+ industry leaders in the room? Submit your idea now to claim a spot on the program.
TAUS QE & AI Orchestration Masterclass: Engineering Autonomous Localization Pipelines
Kickstart your TAUS Vancouver experience with an immersive, hands-on Masterclass dedicated to AI Orchestration and real-time Quality Estimation (QE). This full-day Masterclass goes beyond high-level strategy to give you the technical architecture and operational blueprints needed to deploy intelligent, autonomous localization pipelines at scale.
Powered by the combined capabilities of Blackbird.io’s orchestration platform and TAUS EPIC, this interactive session demonstrates how combining seamless workflow automation with dynamic, segment-level quality scoring fundamentally changes the economics of enterprise localization.
Featuring real-world case studies from enterprise clients, this session delivers actionable insights you can implement immediately.
Find out more information and registration under the "Masterclass" tab here above.
Opening Reception
Join us for an opening reception at the Sutton Place Hotel Vancouver from 18:00 - 20:00. Attendance is included in the registration fee, but confirmation is required.
Investments, LLMs, Enterprise Strategy & LSP Transformation
Grab your badge and a coffee/tea before the show begins.
Welcome, introductions and agenda overview
Jaap van der Meer (TAUS)
Anne-Maj van der Meer (TAUS)
Driven by AI automating the core responsibilities that translators, interpreters, and writers have held for decades, the global language sector is experiencing a profound existential crisis. Given that the industry appears on a path toward dissolution, what incentive remains for investors to commit capital to this field? In this session we will ask investors in LSPs and language technologies what attracts them in the localization industry. Are they betting on a new wave of industry consolidation, buying revenues and increasing market share? Or are they primarily after the next breakthrough technology that will revolutionize and automate everything?
Speaker & Host:
Henning Hinz (t'works)
Sophie Krishnan (Lokalise)
John Tinsley (Translated)
Hosted by: Jaap van der Meer (TAUS)
3-Minute Raw Pitches: Unbuilt workflow hacks, AI guardrails, and open-source concepts pitched live to the room.
Speakers & Hosts:
Bruno Bitter (Blackbird)
Soeren Eberhardt (Translation Commons)
Walid Kacimi (XTM)
Hosted by: Anne-Maj van der Meer (TAUS)
Coffee and tea
Translation Management Systems (TMS) platforms are the backbone of localization departments and language service providers. But translation workflows as we know them are becoming obsolete as AI takes over core translation tasks. TMS’s evolve towards AI Orchestration Platforms and Marketplaces, striking the right balance between AI agents for optimized automation and expert human intelligence for quality and reliability.
Speakers & Hosts:
Shirley Coady (Language Intelligence Corporation)
Lorcan Malone (XTM)
Dan Milczarski (Blackbird)
Jourik Ciesielski (Crowdin)
Hosted by: John Tinsley (Translated)
Networking break
Intelligence-as-a-utility seems to make everything so easy. Heads of enterprise globalization and localization get the question asked from their executives: Why do we need a localization vendor? Can we not just use a LLM? It is tempting for enterprises to build their own multilingual content delivery platforms on the back of GenAI. Do-It-Yourself is what chiefs of technology may articulate as the new localization strategy. And save all the costs spent on human translation and quality assurance. The heads of the localization departments tend to resist this oversimplified approach. But at the same time, they know that some level of destruction is inevitable. How is this dilemma between DIY and DYOB (Destroy your own business) playing out?
Speakers & Hosts:
Wayne Bourland (Dell)
Katell Jentreau (Expedia Group)
Ilya Stametau (Netflix)
Teresa Marshall (Salesforce)
Cori Alcorn (Meta)
Sravanthi Aluvala (Warner Bros. Discovery)
Hosted by: Paula Hunter (Autodesk)
Coffee and tea
Interactive Table Session: Cabaret tables select, live-hack, stress-test, and polish the morning pitches.
Intelligence-as-a-utility undermines the fundamental role of the language service provider. Yes, human intelligence remains indispensable. As we say: the global language industry has a unique role in protecting business, governments, consumers and citizens from a massive, ugly ‘equalizer’. But how do LSPs define that new role? Will they move up the value chain, become tech-first companies? Or will they go horizontally, leveraging their networks of human linguistic resources to offer data services: the human data layer.
Speakers & Hosts:
Jonas Ryberg (Centific)
Mohamed Hussein (Piedmont Global)
Mark Evenepoel (TRSB)
Paul Danter (Welo Global)
Heather Shoemaker (Language IO)
Hosted by: Anne-Maj van der Meer (TAUS)
Hosted by: Renato Beninatto (Nimdzi)
Relax and get ready for the networking dinner
Location to be confirmed. RSVP required.
Language Barriers, Speech-to-Speech, AI Orchestration & The Sandbox Finale
Fuel up for today's agenda!
Welcome, introductions and agenda overview
Jaap van der Meer (TAUS)
Anne-Maj van der Meer (TAUS)
Canada is officially bilingual (English and French), but many more languages are spoken by a population of immigrants and indigenous people. Like the EU, the Canadian government invests in multilinguality and in language technology and policies. This session focuses on how these government and institutional investments in this era of rapid technological innovation help to turn language barriers into competitive advantages.
Speakers:
Jean-François Lymburner (Translation Bureau of Canada)
Luthfi Dhofier (Canadian International Council (CIC) Vancouver)
Sylvia Xalabarde (Society of Translators and Interpreters of British Columbia (STIBC))
Hosted by: André Palaguine (Language Intelligence Corporation)
3-Minute Raw Pitches: Unbuilt workflow hacks, AI guardrails, and open-source concepts pitched live to the room.
Speakers:
Erik Vogt (Vogt Strategy/Datamundi)
Stefan Huyghe (Crowdin)
Hosted by: Anne-Maj van der Meer (TAUS)
Coffee and tea
A timely look at the state of the art as Speech-to-Speech translation technology reaches demanding mainstream use cases. Expect a lightning review of the field since the 90s; exciting demos of new products for online conferencing and healthcare; and opportunities for interactions with panelists.
Speakers & Hosts:
Alexander Waibel
Amir Kamran (TAUS)
Francesco de Toni (Supanova Health)
Hosted by: Mark Seligman (Spoken Translation)
Networking break
Dozens of LLM leaderboards claim to crown the "best" model, but model evaluations rarely translate into sound enterprise procurement decisions. How can buyers evaluate quality against latency, cost, domain accuracy, and vendor bias? This session moves beyond static benchmark scores to explore what a trustworthy, independent evaluation framework actually looks like. The goal isn't selecting a single winner—it's building a balanced decision model for enterprise AI.
Speaker & Host:
Alon Lavie (Carnegie Mellon University)
Marina Pantcheva (RWS)
Amir Kamran (TAUS)
Hosted by: Arle Lommel (CSA Research)
Interactive Table Session: Cabaret tables select, live-hack, stress-test, and polish the morning pitches.
Coffee and tea
Large Language Models and AI capabilities are becoming standard features inside translation platforms. But as TMS providers introduce commercial abstractions like "AI Units" or processing credits, an extra commercial layer is added to an already complex stack. Customers often find themselves paying for the TMS platform, the platform’s internal AI credits, and the underlying AI provider's consumption costs. Are buyers paying for true intelligence, or for orchestration, convenience, and governance? As AI becomes as ubiquitous as electricity, where is genuine value actually being created, and how many commercial margins can the ecosystem sustain? This session unpacks transparency, pricing models, and the evolution of the AI value chain across enterprise software.
Speakers & Hosts:
Adam Bittlingmayer ( ModelFront)
Olga Beregovaya (Smartling)
Ann Huehls (Piedmont Global)
Hosted by: Dace Dzeguze (TAUS)
The four top table-polished innovations present final upgrades on stage. Live audience voting crowns the winner!
See you in 2027!
Articulate is changing the way the world learns with the #1 e-learning platform for creating global workplace training: Articulate 360. Our award-winning authoring tools are enhanced with integrated AI to help creators of every skill level develop courses up to 9x faster.
Intento is a multilingual AI platform that helps global companies deliver consistent language experiences. Its Enterprise Language Hub combines MT and generative AI in automated workflows, customized with client data and integrated into existing systems, enabling high-quality, real-time translations for localization, marketing, and customer support worldwide.
Smartling’s LanguageAI platform is revolutionizing translation of the world’s digital content. Named as the top translation management system by CSA Research and users on G2, Smartling harnesses AI to automate workflows, integrate with popular software, and improve translation quality at scale for a fraction of the cost of traditional translation.
Speechmorphing, Inc. is an AI-driven speech and translation technology company based in Silicon Valley and presently focusing upon automatic translated dubbing that preserves the original voice color while adding target language lip sync, assistive technology for people with speech difficulties and real-time spoken translation of multi-language conversations.
Interested in exhibiting?
Get a booth in our exhibition pavilion and secure your company’s prime spot to demonstrate your latest innovations and showcase your expertise. A booth will help you forge valuable, long-lasting connections with the top managers and directors in the industry from across the world. We still have space left so reserve your spot now!
TAUS QE & AI Orchestration Masterclass: Engineering Autonomous Localization Pipelines
Pre-conference day (14 October) of the TAUS Vancouver Conference.
Kickstart your TAUS Vancouver experience with an immersive, hands-on Masterclass dedicated to AI Orchestration and real-time Quality Estimation (QE). This full-day Masterclass goes beyond high-level strategy to give you the technical architecture and operational blueprints needed to deploy intelligent, autonomous localization pipelines at scale.
Powered by the combined capabilities of Blackbird’s orchestration platform and TAUS EPIC, this interactive session demonstrates how combining seamless workflow automation with dynamic, segment-level quality scoring fundamentally changes the economics of enterprise localization.
What You Will Learn:
Autonomous Routing & Triggering: How to use real-time QE scores to dynamically route content, auto-approving high-confidence segments, triggering Automated Post-Editing (APE) for systematic errors, and escalating only high-risk content to human editors.
Orchestrating Complex AI Stacks: Practical techniques for linking LLMs, legacy MT engines, and specialized translation tools into unified, low-code/no-code Blackbird workflows.
Eliminating Post-Editing Waste: How moving from manual, random LQA sampling to continuous, real-time quality scoring prevents over-editing, reduces turnaround times by up to 80%, and slashes post-editing costs.
Measuring Hard Financial ROI: Step-by-step frameworks to calculate cost savings, throughput gains, and quality benchmarks across your entire enterprise supply chain.
Hands-on Blueprinting & Case Studies: Unpack real-world implementation case studies from leading enterprise clients and build out actionable workflow blueprints you can deploy inside your own organization immediately.
Details & Registration
The masterclass will start at 10:00 am with registration opening at 9:30 am. The session will end around 17:30 and is followed by the opening reception of the main conference. Lunch is included.
Price: € 495
Or in combination with the main conference: € 350
Hotel Recommendations
We have arranged a special conference rate for attendees at the nearby Atlante Star Hotel, a four-star hotel located just a short walk from the conference venue. The hotel offers beautiful rooftop views over St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican (where the opening reception will take place) and provides convenient access to the Corsie Sistine.
Networking Events
Beyond daytime coffee and lunch breaks, join us for two evening networking events to reconnect and build new connections.
Attendance is included in your registration, but please confirm your spot using the TAUS team RSVP form.
14 October: Opening Reception at The Sutton Place Hotel Vancouver
Kick off the conference with our opening reception on 14 October (18:00-20:00) at the Sutton Place Hotel Vancouver, featuring drinks and snacks. Meet your fellow speakers and attendees and start the conversations and brainstorming to set the stage for the rest of the week.
15 October: Networking Dinner at Black+Blue Vancouver (sponsored by Translated)
Join us for a networking dinner on 15 October at 18:00 at Black+Blue Vancouver, just a 5-minute walk from the Sutton Place Hotel Vancouver. Located in the heart of Vancouver’s fashion district, Black+Blue is renowned for its sleek multi-story design and versatile contemporary menu.
Venue
The TAUS Conference 2026 will be hosted at the Sutton Place Hotel Vancouver, an iconic Vancouver landmark.
Experience five-star luxury in the heart of the city. Our conference will take advantage of the hotel's sophisticated event spaces and its unbeatable location near Robson Street. With its blend of old-world charm and modern amenities, it provides an inspiring backdrop for our gathering. The hotel is conveniently located just a 5-minute walk from the Burrard SkyTrain Station, and on-site valet or self-parking is available for those arriving by car.
We've negotiated a special rate of CAD 319 per night (excl. taxes & fees) for the dates of the conference. Bookings can be made via this link or by emailing or calling the hotel directly and mentioning the following code: VC261014TAU
Sutton Place Hotel Vancouver
The venue is easily accessible by taxi and public transport and sits within walking distance of many hotels, restaurants, and historic landmarks. Please find more details about our hotel recommendations below.
Hotel Recommendations
We have arranged a special conference rate for attendees at the nearby Atlante Star Hotel, a four-star hotel located just a short walk from the conference venue. The hotel offers beautiful rooftop views over St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican (where the opening reception will take place) and provides convenient access to the Corsie Sistine.
Vancouver Localization Week
Two Premier Conferences. One Trip. Complete Industry Coverage.
For the first time, TAUS and LocWorld are partnering to bring you Vancouver Localization Week—an immersive, 8-day industry experience combining two of global content's most influential gatherings back-to-back.
Instead of choosing where to spend your travel budget, you can experience the best of both worlds in a single, high-impact trip.
TAUS Conference + LocWorld Individual ComboPass
14 - 21 October
9:00 - 17:00
Access to all networking events
Early Bird - August 10
€ 2,900
€2900
* Excluding QE Masterclass
TAUS Conference + LocWorld Group ComboPass
14 - 21 October
9:00 - 17:00
Access to networking events
Registration for 3 people
Early Bird - August 10
€ 7,395
€ 7,395
* Excluding QE Masterclass
If you'd like to register more than 3 people, please write to events@taus.net
Registration
Conference Individual Registration
14 - 16 October
9:00 - 17:00
Access to networking events
Early Bird - August 10
€ 1,975
€ 1,975
Expo Registration
10-11 June
9:00 - 17:00
Access to networking events
Includes 1 registration
€ 4,000
Conference Group Registration
14 - 16 October
9:00 - 17:00
Access to networking events
Registration for 3 people
Early Bird - August 10
€ 5,500
€ 5,500
If you'd like to register more than 3 people, please write to events@taus.net
