Blog Articles

For more than three decades, the Americans with Disabilities Act has shaped how public life in the United States becomes more accessible. Introduced in 1990, the ADA protects the rights of people with disabilities across employment, transport, public services, and participation in civic life. Title II sits at the heart of this framework. It applies to State and local government entities and requires that qualified individuals with disabilities can access services, programmes, and activities on an equal basis.

Language accessibility has become one of the defining responsibilities of modern organisations. As services, interactions, and experiences continue to shift, expectations for inclusive communication are rising. Regulations such as the European Accessibility Act (EAA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and California’s Senate Bill 707 (SB 707) have accelerated this shift by setting clear requirements for accessible communication. Yet compliance alone is not enough. Organisations that treat language accessibility purely as a checklist risk missing the broader opportunity to create experiences that are genuinely usable, human centred, and future ready.

What is the lowest-risk path to scaling multilingual access across your organisation without blowing up security, budget, or user experience?

This question is asked by thousands of leaders every day. The first thing to consider is that global communication has never been more complex. Enterprises and institutions now operate across markets and time zones, manage remote teams and virtual events, and engage audiences who speak dozens of different languages.

Live translation is now a standard expectation for global events, meetings, and broadcasts. In 2026, the challenge for event organisers is no longer whether to provide multilingual access, but how to evaluate and select an approach that is reliable, responsible, and scalable over time.

As organisations align priorities for 2026, one assumption is increasingly taken for granted: that AI translation has largely solved multilingual communication. In enterprise environments, this assumption rarely holds.

Nowadays, as globalisation and the internet continue to expand, it is increasingly uncommon to host an event (whether a meeting, conference, corporate town hall, hybrid webinar, or summit) where everyone involved speaks the same language. On the contrary, most meetings, whether high- or low-stakes, bring together people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Yet many event organisers still default to a single language — often English — under the assumption that "most participants will understand it." This assumption is not only exclusionary for participants who may feel inhibited or lost in the conversation; it also carries hidden costs for organisations and the outcomes of the event. As language partners such as Interprefy have seen time and again, opting out of full multilingual support is, in reality, a business risk.

Organisations from all over the world are starting to rethink how they communicate internally and externally. Multilingual technology is emerging as a strategic capability, not simply a tool for major conferences. Interprefy’s latest market research across APAC and the Middle East shows that demand for real-time multilingual support continues to rise, with 86% of Middle Eastern organisers and 71% of APAC organisers identifying strong attendee expectations for live translation and interpretation at events of every type and format.

The race to build AI-powered multilingual communication took another major turn this month as Cisco finalised its acquisition of EzDubs — the Y Combinator-backed real-time translation startup known for its voice-preserving technology. Cisco had initially announced its intent to acquire the company in November, and EzDubs will now be folded into Cisco’s Collaboration portfolio, including Webex, signalling an acceleration of Cisco’s ambition to make multilingual communication a native feature of its ecosystem.

As global organisations prepare for 2026, the need to communicate seamlessly across languages has never been more urgent. The rapid evolution of AI language translation, the rising maturity of real-time translation services, and the increasing expectations of multilingual audiences are reshaping how businesses, institutions, and event teams plan for the year ahead. Yet amidst a myriad of AI-only tools entering the market, one truth is increasingly clear: enterprises still need accuracy, accountability, and stability — especially when multilingual communication directly impacts brand reputation, stakeholder trust, and mission-critical outcomes.