JIAMCATT, the International Annual Meeting on Computer-Assisted Translation and Terminology, provides a forum for debate, exchange and cooperation in the fields of computer-assisted terminology and translation, interpretation and documentation. The Translation Centre was pleased to have the honour of presenting at the 2025 edition at the World Trade Organization in Geneva, which was themed 'Minds and machines: solving the quality puzzle', focusing particularly on the current debate over AI-based language solutions.
The conference ran from 7 to 9 April, and brought together participants from EU institutions and bodies, international organisations and academia, with around 150 on-site participants and numerous online attendees. Presentations by the IMF, OECD, UN, WTO, WIPO and various EU institutions and bodies, among others, gave a good overview of how they are adapting to the fast-paced changes in the language services industry.
Terminology
The topic of terminology was comprehensively addressed in the 2025 edition of JIAMCATT. The IATE Tool Manager from the Translation Centre gave both a demo and a presentation on the latest developments in the IATE terminology management system.
IATE is celebrating its 20th anniversary by incorporating AI-enhanced features, a clean-up module to help maintain its large content, optimisations in the Terminology Projects Module (a recent module that has become the backbone of terminology management in EU translation services), and a consolidated IATE live term recognition plugin for CAT tools across the EU institutions. The presentation also provided an overview of the new IATE Online Help, and insights into how terminology work is undertaken at the EU institutions and centrally managed in IATE.
Quality was at the heart of JIAMCATT 2025 and emphasised in all presentations. Quality was also covered in a workshop entitled ‘Solving the quality puzzle’, in which participants analysed the quality issues and problems that they encounter, whether they originate from humans or machines, what solutions could be put in place to improve quality, and whether these would come from humans or machines. The importance of high-quality data and its proper management was a cornerstone of the solutions put forward.
Along with the Translation Centre, other EU institutions also participated actively in the conference, with the Publications Office presenting its work on maintaining corporate reference data services that ensure consistency, efficiency and interoperability in multilingual workflows. The Commission DG Translation presented its developments in terminology management, with shared and dynamic workspaces, targeted communication, and streamlined practices, enhanced by AI developments and applications.
Various presentations further focused on speech technologies, including speech-to-text translation, speech-to-speech and speech-to-summary options.
Conclusions
Overall, the JIAMCATT conference provided a valuable platform for professionals to exchange insights on language technology and terminology, with a strong emphasis on human added value. It underlined the importance of a harmonious partnership between humans and machines, the need for context-specific strategies and the continued sharing of knowledge and best practices across organisations.