Explainer The Edit Distance Report
What to expect from AI translation, in five charts
We measured 27 million translated sentences. Here is where AI suggestions hold, where your linguists still change them, and how that shifts over a year.
Use the charts when a client or your finance team asks what AI changes.
AI suggestions need about half the editing
Context-sensitive suggestions draw on your translation memory, glossary and past corrections. People change 8% of their words. Plain machine translation gets 15%.
Expect 47% less editing than plain machine translation.
Share of words people change before a sentence shipsAverage per sentence, 2026
Source The Edit Distance Report, wxrks
Half of all sentences go out untouched
The editing that is left sits in a minority of sentences. 14 in 100 have more than half their words rewritten.
Expect Your linguists’ time goes on the sentences that need judgement.
How much people change, out of 100 sentencesAll 27 million sentences, August 2024 to September 2026
- 52Untouched
- 13Light, up to 5% of words
- 8Moderate, 5% to 15%
- 13Heavy, 15% to 50%
- 14Rewritten, more than half the words
Source The Edit Distance Report, wxrks
European languages get more editing than most
French, German, Italian, Dutch and Spanish for Spain sit at 21% to 26% of words changed. Spanish for the US sits at 9%.
Expect More linguist time for the languages you sell into in Europe.
Share of words people change, by languageFrom English, the 14 pairs in the study. European languages
Source The Edit Distance Report, wxrks. Source text in US English.
Editing more than halves in ten months
New accounts start at 42% of words changed and reach about 16% by month ten, as the memory and glossary fill up. The learning stays in your memory and glossary, never in an AI model.
Expect Gains that build month by month.
Share of words people change in new accountsAverage by month since the account started
Source The Edit Distance Report, wxrks
Review leaves 98 in 100 sentences as they are
84 in 100 AI suggestions go out as written. By the review stage, 98 in 100 sentences pass with no change.
Expect Review can go where the risk is, such as legal and life sciences.
Sentences that pass with no change, out of 100Two stages of the same work
84 in 100
AI suggestions, as written
98 in 100
Sentences at review
Source The Edit Distance Report, wxrks
The person who runs localisation
Your role matters more than ever
Editing a suggestion is only 7% faster per word. The time comes back in the reading, so the work moves to deciding what gets read, reviewed and kept. Whoever runs that flow decides how much time AI saves.
- 1SuggestAI suggests from your memory and glossary. 84 in 100 go out as written.
- 2ReadYour callYou choose what gets a full read. Smells flags where the meaning may have shifted.
- 3ReviewYour callYou choose which passes run. Keep them where the risk is, such as legal and life sciences.
- 4KeepYour callYou decide what the memory and glossary keep. As they fill up, editing falls.
Round again, with a fuller memory
About the data
- Sample
- 27,040,017 sentences on the wxrks platform, August 2024 to September 2026.
- Change
- Words replaced, added, deleted or moved before a person confirmed the sentence.
- Privacy
- Group numbers only. No client named, no text read.
- Limits
- It counts changes, not quality. It is production data, not a lab test. The learning curve follows accounts that stayed.
Take the charts to your next client or budget meeting
The full report has 14 sections and the method behind every number.
How we designed this page for the United Kingdom
We read the most visited websites in the UK and its culture scores, and let both shape this page.
- An explainer in chartsBBC is the only news site in the UK top 10, beside Reddit and Wikipedia, and GOV.UK is 14th. So the page is a plain explainer with a source under every chart.
- British English, with ‘you’Localisation, judgement, linguists. Short sentences and no hype, the way UK language companies write. The full report is in English.
- Charts first, caveats shortUncertainty avoidance is 35 in the UK, so the page opens on the charts and skips the FAQ. Long-term orientation is 51, so the learning curve gets its own chart.
- Black, white and one blueQuiet news-site colours, one blue for the numbers that matter and yellow for your decisions. Our own brand green stays out.