The State of Translation Automation 2026 · Languages
What it takes to automate translation from English into Tatar against 10 requirements in three levels: the solutions that meet them, what they cost and how fast they are, from the 2026 benchmark of 57 AI models and MT engines.
A solution is a model plus its harness: prompts, glossaries and other context, pre- and post-processing. It meets a quality level when it meets every requirement of the level.
| Requirement | Description | Met when |
|---|---|---|
| Basic requirements for any company | ||
| General translation quality | Translation errors of every type, such as mistranslations, omissions and grammar errors, classified by type and severity following MQM, the industry standard. | No critical error, at most 3 major errors in the four test texts (3,034 words) and at most 20 errors per 1,000 words, weighted by severity (minor 1, major 5, critical 10). |
| Standard requirements adds the rules companies set for their content | ||
| Terminology | The approved translation of every glossary term, in any of its correct forms. | 100% of the glossary terms. We test it in the 16 languages with a glossary, so it does not apply in Tatar. |
| Tone of voice | The formal register (Сез) in every sentence in the second person or the imperative. | 100% of those sentences. |
| Tags | Every HTML tag of the source, with its attributes, in the translation. | 100% of the tags. |
| Unicode character integrity | Every character intact, with no corrupted characters and no letter from another script that only looks like the right one. | 100% of the characters. |
| Locale conventions | The punctuation marks of the target language in place of the English ones. | No pass-or-fail bar. We report it as a share, because whether to localize punctuation is a matter of house style. |
| HTML entities | No HTML character code, such as the code for a quotation mark, that the source does not carry. | No added HTML entity. |
| Valid JSON | The translated JSON document still parses. | The document parses. |
| Spacing at tag boundaries | The spaces next to HTML tags stay as in the source. | 100% of the tag boundaries. |
| Advanced requirements adds a requirement for some companies and use cases | ||
| Gender neutrality | A gender-neutral translation wherever the English source leaves the gender of a person open, as in “your manager” or “the expert”. | 100% of the sentences that refer to a person. |
Pick a quality level, or your own requirements, bars and constraints, to see the shortlisted solutions that meet them in Tatar, with a column for each requirement you select. Under Optimize for, choose which of them comes first: the one with the fewest total errors, the lowest cost or the shortest time. Click a column heading to sort by it.
The shortlisted solutions on 11 models, with their Intento LQA results. Total errors per 1,000 words add the weighted general translation quality errors (minor 1, major 5, critical 10) to the missed glossary terms, sentences in the wrong register, tag errors and sentences that fail gender neutrality, each counted once. Formatting counts as met or missed and does not add to the total errors. The models that did not make the shortlist have automatic scores only: the shortlist. Inconclusive: the three LQA judges agree on fewer than 90% of the sentences of the solution, so it has no general translation quality result (09-02). Gender neutrality: the Advanced requirements count the two best solutions of the language, with the gender-neutrality agent where they need it. The results of the other solutions are shown for information.
Two three-step solutions (translation + LQA + repair) meet every Standard requirement in Tatar. The one on Anthropic Claude Fable 5 has 10.5 total errors per 1,000 words and costs $645 per million characters, against 16.2 and $759 for the one on Translated Lara 2. The one on Translated Lara 2 is faster, at 255 against 348 seconds per 1,000 words. So optimizing for quality or cost selects Anthropic Claude Fable 5, and optimizing for latency selects Translated Lara 2.
The shortlist for Tatar holds three real-time solutions, under 2 seconds per text across the languages we timed: the one-step ones on DeepL Next Gen, Translated Lara 2 and OpenAI gpt-oss-120b. None of them meet the Basic requirements. Into Tatar, the ones on Translated Lara 2 and OpenAI gpt-oss-120b take 2.2 and 2.8 seconds per 1,000 words, so a time limit of 2 seconds per 1,000 words leaves only the one on DeepL Next Gen, at 0.7.
The Advanced requirements add gender neutrality, and in Tatar meeting them does not raise the cost or the time. Translations from the two three-step solutions (translation + LQA + repair) that meet every Standard requirement have 100% of the sentences about people gender-neutral without the gender-neutrality agent. So the same two solutions meet every Advanced requirement, at the same cost and time as for the Standard ones.
Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview
three-step
Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview
three-step
Translated Lara 2
three-step
Anthropic Claude Fable 5
three-step
Anthropic Claude Fable 5
three-step
Translated Lara 2
three-step
Anthropic Claude Fable 5
three-step
Anthropic Claude Fable 5
three-step
Translated Lara 2
three-step
Optimize for selects one of the solutions that meet the level: the one with the fewest total errors, the lowest cost or the shortest time. Where no solution meets the level, the card shows the available solution with the fewest total errors and what it misses. Total errors count every requirement with countable errors.
| Quality level | Tier | Solutions | Simplest solution | Model | Total errors per 1,000 words | Cost per million characters | Seconds per 1,000 words |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Tier 2: two or more solutions, none simple | ☆☆☆ | three-step | Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | 8.6 | $610 | 324 |
| Standard | Tier 2: two or more solutions, none simple | ☆☆ | three-step | Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | 10.5 | $645 | 348 |
| Advanced | Tier 2: two or more solutions, none simple | ☆☆ | three-step | Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | 10.5 | $645 | 348 |
One solution per level: the simplest that meets the level, the cheapest of them where several are equally simple. ★ a one-step solution, ☆ a solution with more steps or the gender-neutrality agent.
Meeting the requirements of any level in Tatar takes three steps (translation + LQA + repair). Under the Basic requirements, optimizing for quality and cost selects Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, and for latency Translated Lara 2. The Standard requirements remove the solution on Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, so optimizing for quality and cost selects Anthropic Claude Fable 5. The Advanced requirements remove neither of the other two, and both meet gender neutrality without the gender-neutrality agent.
| Model | US dollars per million characters | Weighted errors per 1,000 words | Group |
|---|---|---|---|
| z.ai GLM-5 | 2.67 | 94.6 | Misses a Standard requirement |
| Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | 5.45 | 30 | Misses a Standard requirement |
| OpenAI GPT-5.5 | 12.5 | 36.9 | Misses a Standard requirement |
| Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 | 16.75 | 66.6 | Misses a Standard requirement |
| Translated Lara 2 | 24.99 | 124.6 | Misses a Standard requirement |
| DeepL Next Gen | 27.5 | 90.3 | Misses a Standard requirement |
| Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | 32.97 | 33.3 | Misses a Standard requirement |
Among the one-step solutions in Tatar with a cost and a conclusive Intento LQA result, paying more than $5.45 per million characters does not buy fewer errors. The cheapest, on z.ai GLM-5, costs $2.67 per million characters and has 94.6 weighted errors per 1,000 words. The one on Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview costs $5.45 per million characters and has the fewest, 30.0 weighted errors per 1,000 words. The dearest, on Anthropic Claude Fable 5, costs $32.97 per million characters and has 33.3 weighted errors per 1,000 words.
| Requirement | Median errors per 1,000 words |
|---|---|
| General translation quality | 78.4 |
| Tag handling | 1 |
| Tone of voice | 0 |
| Gender neutrality | 0 |
The requirements with countable errors. Every solution with its result on each requirement: the explorer.
| Model | Weighted errors per 1,000 words of the shortlisted one-step solutions in Tatar | Class |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI gpt-oss-120b | 206 | Open-weight LLMs |
| Translated Lara 2 | 124.6 | LLM-based MT engines |
| z.ai GLM-5 | 94.6 | LLMs |
| DeepL Next Gen | 90.3 | LLM-based MT engines |
| Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 | 66.6 | LLMs |
| OpenAI GPT-5.5 | 36.9 | LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | 33.3 | LLMs |
| Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | 30 | LLMs |
No translation into Tatar: AI21 Jamba Large 1.7 (garbage or near-empty, wrong language, wrong script), Swiss AI Apertus-8B-2509 (wrong language, wrong script, cut off part-way).
| Rank | Model | Similarity score (higher is better) | LaBSE | Cohere embed v3 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | OpenAI GPT-5.5 | 0.75 | 0.881 | 0.716 | Shortlisted |
| 2 | z.ai GLM-5 | 0.65 | 0.878 | 0.712 | Shortlisted |
| 3 | Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | 0.57 | 0.875 | 0.709 | Shortlisted |
| 4 | DeepL Next Gen | 0.53 | 0.870 | 0.710 | Shortlisted |
| 5 | Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | 0.53 | 0.870 | 0.709 | Shortlisted |
| 6 | xAI Grok 4.20 (reasoning) | 0.50 | 0.874 | 0.705 | Shortlisted |
| 7 | Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 | 0.50 | 0.875 | 0.705 | Shortlisted |
| 8 | OpenAI gpt-oss-120b | 0.49 | 0.859 | 0.715 | Shortlisted |
| 9 | MoonshotAI Kimi K2.5 | 0.47 | 0.870 | 0.707 | Shortlisted |
| 10 | DeepSeek V3.2 | 0.47 | 0.866 | 0.709 | Shortlisted |
| 11 | OpenAI GPT-5.6 Luna | 0.44 | 0.866 | 0.707 | Not shortlisted |
| 12 | Translated Lara 2 | 0.43 | 0.860 | 0.711 | Shortlisted |
| 13 | Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.6 | 0.36 | 0.866 | 0.702 | Not shortlisted |
| 14 | OpenAI GPT-4.1 | 0.30 | 0.856 | 0.706 | Not shortlisted |
| 15 | Google Gemma 4 | 0.30 | 0.844 | 0.713 | Not shortlisted |
| 16 | Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5 | 0.29 | 0.858 | 0.703 | Not shortlisted |
| 17 | Microsoft Translator | 0.28 | 0.859 | 0.702 | Not shortlisted |
| 18 | Mistral Large 3 | 0.14 | 0.857 | 0.695 | Not shortlisted |
| 19 | Yandex Cloud Translate v2 | 0.10 | 0.852 | 0.696 | Not shortlisted |
| 20 | Google Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0.05 | 0.848 | 0.696 | Not shortlisted |
| 21 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | -0.06 | 0.837 | 0.697 | Not shortlisted |
| 22 | Google Cloud Advanced Translation API | -0.19 | 0.847 | 0.683 | Not shortlisted |
| 23 | Alibaba Qwen3-235B-A22B | -0.61 | 0.806 | 0.686 | Not shortlisted |
| 24 | ModernMT Enterprise Edition | -0.79 | 0.809 | 0.672 | Not shortlisted |
| 25 | MiniMax M2.5 | -0.86 | 0.791 | 0.681 | Not shortlisted |
| 26 | Cohere Command A Translate | -1.36 | 0.763 | 0.670 | Not shortlisted |
| 27 | Anthropic Claude Haiku 4.5 | -4.29 | 0.674 | 0.555 | Not shortlisted |
| Model | Solution complexity | Similarity rank | LaBSE | Cohere embed v3 | Shortlist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI GPT-5.5 | Adjusted LLM | 1 | 0.881 | 0.716 | Top 10 by the similarity score |
| z.ai GLM-5 | Adjusted LLM | 2 | 0.878 | 0.712 | Top 10 by the similarity score |
| Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | Adjusted LLM | 3 | 0.875 | 0.709 | Top 10 by the similarity score |
| DeepL Next Gen | Off-the-shelf NMT | 4 | 0.870 | 0.710 | Top 10 by the similarity score |
| Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | Adjusted LLM | 5 | 0.870 | 0.709 | Top 10 by the similarity score |
| xAI Grok 4.20 (reasoning) | Adjusted LLM | 6 | 0.874 | 0.705 | Top 10 by the similarity score |
| Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 | Adjusted LLM | 7 | 0.875 | 0.705 | Top 10 by the similarity score |
| OpenAI gpt-oss-120b | Adjusted LLM | 8 | 0.859 | 0.715 | Top 10 by the similarity score |
| MoonshotAI Kimi K2.5 | Adjusted LLM | 9 | 0.870 | 0.707 | Top 10 by the similarity score |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | Adjusted LLM | 10 | 0.866 | 0.709 | Top 10 by the similarity score |
| OpenAI GPT-5.6 Luna | Adjusted LLM | 11 | 0.866 | 0.707 | Not shortlisted |
| Translated Lara 2 | Adjusted NMT | 12 | 0.860 | 0.711 | Real-time place |
| Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Adjusted LLM | 13 | 0.866 | 0.702 | Not shortlisted |
| OpenAI GPT-4.1 | Adjusted LLM | 14 | 0.856 | 0.706 | Not shortlisted |
| Google Gemma 4 | Off-the-shelf LLM | 15 | 0.844 | 0.713 | Not shortlisted |
| Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5 | Adjusted LLM | 16 | 0.858 | 0.703 | Not shortlisted |
| Microsoft Translator | Off-the-shelf NMT | 17 | 0.859 | 0.702 | Not shortlisted |
| Mistral Large 3 | Adjusted LLM | 18 | 0.857 | 0.695 | Not shortlisted |
| Yandex Cloud Translate v2 | Off-the-shelf NMT | 19 | 0.852 | 0.696 | Not shortlisted |
| Google Gemini 3.5 Flash | Adjusted LLM | 20 | 0.848 | 0.696 | Not shortlisted |
| Mistral Medium 3.1 | Adjusted LLM | 21 | 0.837 | 0.697 | Not shortlisted |
| Google Cloud Advanced Translation API | Off-the-shelf NMT | 22 | 0.847 | 0.683 | Not shortlisted |
| Alibaba Qwen3-235B-A22B | Adjusted LLM | 23 | 0.806 | 0.686 | Not shortlisted |
| ModernMT Enterprise Edition | Off-the-shelf NMT | 24 | 0.809 | 0.672 | Not shortlisted |
| MiniMax M2.5 | Adjusted LLM | 25 | 0.791 | 0.681 | Not shortlisted |
| Cohere Command A Translate | Adjusted LLM | 26 | 0.763 | 0.670 | Not shortlisted |
| Anthropic Claude Haiku 4.5 | Adjusted LLM | 27 | 0.674 | 0.555 | Not shortlisted |
| OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol | Adjusted LLM | — | 0.861 | 0.701 | Same model family as OpenAI GPT-5.6 Luna |
| OpenAI GPT-5.6 Terra | Adjusted LLM | — | 0.870 | 0.704 | Same model family as OpenAI GPT-5.6 Luna |
| xAI Grok 4.20 (non-reasoning) | Adjusted LLM | — | 0.856 | 0.703 | Same model family as xAI Grok 4.20 (reasoning) |
Every model we got a translation from, as the shortlist compared it: off the shelf, without context in the request, or adjusted, with it. Ranks among 27 models, with each model family counted once, and the top 10 in bold. The similarity rank combines LaBSE and Cohere embed v3, higher is better on both. The scores rank models within this language and are not a requirement result.
The similarity score, which does not measure fluency, and Intento LQA order the shortlisted solutions differently in Tatar. The score ranks OpenAI GPT-5.5 first and z.ai GLM-5 second, and translations from the one-step solutions on them have 36.9 and 94.6 weighted errors per 1,000 words. Translations from the ones on Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, third, and Anthropic Claude Fable 5, fifth, have 30.0 and 33.3 weighted errors per 1,000 words. Nearest the cut in the tail is OpenAI GPT-5.6 Luna, 11th.
| Quality level | Cheapest solution that meets every requirement of the level | Cost per million characters |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, three-step | $610 |
| Standard | Anthropic Claude Fable 5, three-step | $645 |
| Advanced | Anthropic Claude Fable 5, three-step | $645 |
| Model | US dollars per million characters | Class |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V3.2 | $1.17 | LLMs |
| xAI Grok 4.20 (reasoning) | $1.5 | LLMs |
| MoonshotAI Kimi K2.5 | $1.55 | LLMs |
| z.ai GLM-5 | $2.67 | LLMs |
| Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | $5.45 | LLMs |
| OpenAI GPT-5.5 | $12.5 | LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 | $16.75 | LLMs |
| Translated Lara 2 | $24.99 | LLM-based MT engines |
| DeepL Next Gen | $27.5 | LLM-based MT engines |
| Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | $32.97 | LLMs |
| Model | Tokens per character | Class |
|---|---|---|
| Mistral Large 3 | 0.57 | LLMs |
| Mistral Medium 3.1 | 0.564 | LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5 | 0.552 | LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 | 0.549 | LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | 0.548 | LLMs |
| Cohere Command A Translate | 0.541 | LLMs |
| Alibaba Qwen3-235B-A22B | 0.529 | Open-weight LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0.522 | LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.6 | 0.517 | LLMs |
| z.ai GLM-5 | 0.491 | LLMs |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | 0.464 | LLMs |
| MoonshotAI Kimi K2.5 | 0.458 | LLMs |
| xAI Grok 4.20 (non-reasoning) | 0.455 | LLMs |
| xAI Grok 4.20 (reasoning) | 0.453 | LLMs |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0.425 | LLMs |
| Google Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0.385 | LLMs |
| Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | 0.383 | LLMs |
| Google Gemma 4 | 0.374 | Open-weight LLMs |
| OpenAI GPT-5.6 Terra | 0.35 | LLMs |
| OpenAI GPT-4.1 | 0.348 | LLMs |
| OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol | 0.348 | LLMs |
| OpenAI GPT-5.6 Luna | 0.346 | LLMs |
| OpenAI GPT-5.5 | 0.345 | LLMs |
A translation into Tatar has a median 0.46 tokens per character over 23 models, 1.8 times as many as English text. Tokens per character do not set the order of the costs. The tokenizer of z.ai GLM-5 produces 0.491 tokens per character of the translation, and the one-step solution on it costs $2.67 per million characters, against 0.383 and $5.45 for Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview. From the Basic to the Standard requirements, the lowest cost rises from $610 to $645 per million characters, and the Advanced requirements add nothing.
| Quality level | Fastest solution that meets every requirement of the level | Seconds per 1,000 words |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Translated Lara 2, three-step | 255 |
| Standard | Translated Lara 2, three-step | 255 |
| Advanced | Translated Lara 2, three-step | 255 |
| Model | Seconds per 1,000 words | Class |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Translator | 0.2 | MT engines |
| Google Cloud Advanced Translation API | 0.2 | MT engines |
| ModernMT Enterprise Edition | 0.6 | MT engines |
| DeepL Next Gen | 0.7 | LLM-based MT engines |
| Translated Lara 2 | 2.2 | LLM-based MT engines |
| OpenAI gpt-oss-120b | 2.8 | Open-weight LLMs |
| Yandex Cloud Translate v2 | 7.1 | MT engines |
| OpenAI GPT-5.6 Luna | 18 | LLMs |
| Google Gemini 3.5 Flash | 20 | LLMs |
| OpenAI GPT-4.1 | 32 | LLMs |
| xAI Grok 4.20 (non-reasoning) | 45 | LLMs |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | 54 | LLMs |
| OpenAI GPT-5.6 Terra | 58 | LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Haiku 4.5 | 69 | LLMs |
| Mistral Large 3 | 78 | LLMs |
| Mistral Medium 3.1 | 78 | LLMs |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 83 | LLMs |
| Google Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | 92 | LLMs |
| Cohere Command A Translate | 94 | LLMs |
| OpenAI GPT-5.5 | 110 | LLMs |
| xAI Grok 4.20 (reasoning) | 112 | LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5 | 117 | LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.6 | 120 | LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | 128 | LLMs |
| OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol | 130 | LLMs |
| Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 | 149 | LLMs |
| Alibaba Qwen3-235B-A22B | 180 | Open-weight LLMs |
| MoonshotAI Kimi K2.5 | 299 | LLMs |
| Google Gemma 4 | 326 | Open-weight LLMs |
| z.ai GLM-5 | 337 | LLMs |
Real-time models are those the shortlist counts as real-time, under 2 seconds per text across the languages we timed. The chart shows the time of each model into Tatar.
The six real-time models in Tatar are three MT engines, the LLM-based MT engines DeepL Next Gen and Translated Lara 2, and the open-weight OpenAI gpt-oss-120b. The last three are on the shortlist, and translations from the one-step solutions on them have 90.3, 124.6 and 206.0 weighted errors per 1,000 words. The fastest solution that meets the requirements of each level is the three-step one (translation + LQA + repair) on Translated Lara 2, at 255 seconds per 1,000 words, against 2.2 in one step.
| The two best solutions | Solution | Sentences about people that are gender-neutral | Meets every Advanced requirement | Cost per million characters | Seconds per 1,000 words |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic Claude Fable 5 | three-step | 100% | ✓ | $645 | 348 |
| Translated Lara 2 | three-step | 100% | ✓ | $759 | 254 |
For tone of voice in Tatar we check the formal register, with the form of address Сез, and a bar of 100% of the sentences. All 8 shortlisted one-step solutions with a conclusive Intento LQA result meet it, and so do 2 of the other 3. Translations from the one on MoonshotAI Kimi K2.5 have 97.9% of the sentences in the formal register. Tatar has no grammatical gender for persons, so for gender neutrality a translation is neutral by default. It has only to avoid gendered terms and not add a gender the source does not specify.
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