- According to T-Mobile, Live Translation is a first-of-its-kind network-integrated service that allows for real-time translation during phone calls in over 50 languages
- The operator is targeting multilingual households, as well as frequent flyers and international roaming
- Beta registration opens today, with kick-off planned for this spring
T-Mobile today unwrapped what it describes as a world first: a real-time agentic AI platform built directly into a wireless network. It’s presenting it to customers in the form of Live Translation, a service that enables real-time translation during phone calls in more than 50 languages.
Put another way: This is T-Mobile’s way of making voice cool again in an era where texting, TicToc and Instagram are dominating the airwaves.
It’s important to have a 5G Standalone (SA) network – as T-Mobile was first to launch – in order for this translation service to work the way it does, according to T-Mobile Chief Business and Product Officer Mike Katz.
“We’re real excited about this,” he told Fierce. “I think for a use case like translation, you need ultra-low latency for a conversation to feel natural and not feel super awkward like you get with some of the other translation services.”
In some of these other translation services, there’s a lag between speakers and a robotic voice ends up talking to you.
“It’s really hard to have any type of natural conversation in that environment,” he said. “I think what you’re going to see with this is the power of combining the latest AI models together with the low latency of our 5G Standalone network and that creates an experience that you can’t get anywhere else.”
Citing Pew Research, T-Mobile says an estimated 60 million people live in multilingual households in the U.S. and Live Translation will make it easier for them to use their phones. It also ties into T-Mobile’s travel benefits for customers and the millions of T-Mobile customers who travel internationally.
T-Mobile has about 6 billion phone calls from T-Mobile customers that go to international destinations and about 40% of customers roam internationally every year, Katz said.
The power of AI in the network
A lot of the translation services today also are tied to specific AI models and/or devices, like a specific headphone, but the only requirement for this is for one person in the conversation to have a T-Mobile phone – and any phone will work, even flip phones.
“The intelligence is built into our network, not in the phones,” explained John Saw, CTO at T-Mobile.
“The breakthrough innovation here is that we have actually opened up our IMS network and infused directly an AI agent so that it works directly on the network,” Saw said. “The cool thing about doing it this way is this is a platform where you can plug in different agentic AI models as they get better.”
It uses the native dialer on the T-Mobile smartphone without any special software or hardware; it’s connected into the IMS network and works on voice over LTE, voice over 5G and voice over Wi-Fi technologies.
T-Mobile mum on AI vendors for this
T-Mobile isn’t naming the AI vendors that it’s working with on this; Saw would only say they are working with “a few” different vendors. But again, what’s advantageous in this set-up is as AI platforms improve, they can swap out different models for the ones that show the best prospects.
“We can plug in whatever AI translation model we choose depending on who has the better one at that time,” Saw said.
Since T-Mobile’s Capital Markets Day in 2024, the company has been focused on trying to make AI real for customers, he said.
“We’re actually making voice cool again,” Saw concluded.
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