Translation-sector specialists in Turkey believe that artificial intelligence is reshaping the profession’s working methods by increasing speed and productive capacity, but that it cannot assume professional responsibility or ensure the transfer of context, culture, and style without human review. According to statements reported by Anadolu Agency on September 7, 2026, translators are beginning to treat these tools as a new professional partner, not a complete replacement for themselves.
Ahmet Varol, president of the Turkish Translators Association and the Federation of Translation Agencies, said that a professional translator who does not work in harmony with artificial intelligence will lose their competitive ability. In his estimation, a translator can complete in one day, using these tools, an amount of translation that might take two months to complete by traditional methods, making the adoption of the technology essential for remaining in the market.
Increased Speed Does Not Eliminate the Translator’s Responsibility
Varol points out that artificial intelligence is particularly useful for long documents, books, and catalogs in which passages are repeated, as it reduces the time required to produce a draft. However, he stresses that the resulting text needs to be checked to ensure that the meaning has been understood accurately, and that ultimate responsibility remains with the translator, not the system.
Prof. Dr. Sevinç Arı, deputy dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Marmara University, agrees with this assessment. Arı says that artificial-intelligence models can analyze context more effectively than traditional computer-assisted translation programs, but they may make mistakes in conveying cultural and stylistic elements and in adapting the text to the target audience’s ability to understand it. She therefore believes that official and specialized documents require review by an expert translator.
According to Arı, translators previously completed an average of between 250 and 350 words per hour, depending on their abilities, while the rate can be increased to 1,800 words per hour using artificial intelligence. She says that the technology has reduced prices in some cases, but has simultaneously increased the volume of work a translator can complete.
Price Pressure Accompanies Higher Productivity
Varol does not believe that artificial intelligence has reduced the amount of work in the translation sector, but he says that faster completion has changed clients’ expectations. Some clients, he says, expect prices to be reduced by about 75% because the task is completed in less time. This pressure is particularly evident in the translation of official documents: the cost of a notary’s stamp alone for a 20-line document is approximately 1,700 to 2,000 Turkish lira, while some translators may charge only between 200 and 300 lira because of concerns about losing income, even though the usual price may reach 1,500 lira.
Varol said that the federation had prepared a draft proposal and submitted it to the Turkish Ministry of Justice to address problems in the profession, including setting a minimum tariff to reduce price uncertainty and market imbalance.
What Is Changing in Practice?
These statements show that the practical value of artificial intelligence in translation currently lies in speeding up drafting and handling repetitive texts, not in transferring responsibility to the system. This also means that the skills required of translators are expanding to include evaluating model outputs, understanding the original text, and controlling terminology, context, and culture.
Arı says that Marmara University has updated its curricula and integrated artificial-intelligence technologies into the educational process instead of resisting their use. The open question, according to the available information, concerns the market’s ability to distribute productivity gains fairly between clients and translators, and whether the proposed tariff rules will address the gap between reduced completion time and the cost of professional responsibility and review.