As the year draws to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on a truly transformative period for Clearly Local. 2025 wasn’t just about growth; it was about purposeful evolution. It was a year defined by embracing change, deepening partnerships, and redefining what it means to deliver global content in an AI-driven world. For our clients, partners, and our incredible team, this journey has been centered on one powerful theme: leveraging innovation and adaptability to create genuine global impact.
Join us as we look back on the milestones that have shaped our path toward becoming a smarter, more strategic partner.
Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships
Our success in 2025 was built on strategic partnerships and a bold internal transformation that reshaped our service model.
Expanded Partnership with Phrase: Advancing AI-Driven Localization
A cornerstone of our technological advancement this year was the deepening of our partnership with Phrase, a global leader in language technology. This collaboration has been instrumental in advancing our capabilities in AI-driven localization, allowing us to integrate cutting-edge tools directly into our workflows.
A particular highlight was our selection as one of only three companies worldwide by Phrase to introduce the Solutions Architect role. These architects are the missing link in modern localization: professionals who merge deep technical knowledge with project management to design AI workflows that actually work. This initiative places Clearly Local at the forefront of localization engineering, enabling us to design and deploy highly customized, scalable, and intelligent localization solutions that seamlessly integrate with our clients’ content ecosystems.
This expertise is now fully integrated into our Content 360 framework, ensuring an end-to-end content lifecycle management solution that is smarter, faster, and more efficient than ever before.
Pivot to Intelligence: Our Strategic Transformation
The energy and focus of our annual meeting were captured by the launch of our new guiding strategy: the Pivot to Intelligence. This shift represents an evolution from the traditional Language Service Provider (LSP) model to that of an Intelligent Globalization Partner. This transformation is underpinned by two key pillars that define our service delivery:
- Language Solutions Integrator (LSI): We are moving beyond simple translation to become the central hub that integrates all language-related technologies and services for our clients, ensuring cohesion and maximizing ROI across their entire content stack.
- Multimodal Global Content Service Provider: Recognizing that content is no longer just text, we have expanded our capabilities to handle all forms of media—video, audio, and interactive content—ensuring a consistent, high-quality global voice across every channel.
Industry Engagement and Thought Leadership
As an Intelligent Globalization Partner, Clearly Local has a responsibility to lead the conversation on the future of content. In 2025, we took our thought leadership to the global stage.
Loc360° Events in Shenzhen and Shanghai
Our co-hosted Loc360° events in key markets like Shenzhen and Shanghai brought together industry leaders to discuss the most pressing topics in localization. The central themes revolved around the AI disruption, the critical balance of human-AI collaboration, and the emergence of agentic AI in content workflows. The top takeaways emphasized the necessity of balancing automation for speed and scale with the deep cultural nuance that only human expertise can provide, all driven by data-driven localization strategies.
Global Presence at Major Events
We also showcased our Content 360 framework and strategic vision at major international events:
- Intersolar Europe (Munich): We demonstrated how our Content 360 solutions are specifically tailored to the renewable energy sector, helping companies rapidly and accurately localize complex technical documentation and marketing materials for a global energy transition.
- VivaTech (Paris): Here, we shared insights on how AI-powered content creation and localization are no longer a cost center but a significant strategic advantage for brands looking to dominate international markets.
- LogiMat (Stuttgart): Our presence at this logistics and supply chain event highlighted the critical role of precise, timely localization in global operations and manufacturing.
Service Innovations
The demand for global content is accelerating, particularly in multimedia. Our service innovations in 2025 were designed to meet this demand head-on.
Expanding Our Video Content Capabilities
Building on the successful launch of our Video Content Creation Service in 2024, we significantly expanded and refined our video offerings in 2025. We now offer more video types (check them out here). We also invested in new AI-driven tools to stay ahead in production techniques and drive efficiencies, all while preserving the essential human touch that makes content stand out.
Introduction of ClipLocal
The centerpiece of our multimodal strategy is the introduction of ClipLocal, our all-in-one multimedia localization studio. ClipLocal streamlines the entire process, offering a suite of features including: high-accuracy transcription, professional subtitling, seamless dubbing, and a choice between advanced AI and human voiceovers. ClipLocal is designed to make global video content accessible, fast, and culturally resonant.
Certifications and Recognitions
Our commitment to quality and growth was validated by key external recognitions in 2025.
ISO 13485 Certification
We are proud to have achieved ISO 13485 Certification, a testament to our rigorous quality management system for medical device translations. This certification underscores our dedication to the highest standards of accuracy and compliance in highly regulated industries.
CSA Research’s Top 100 LSPs
Our strategic pivot and operational excellence were reflected in our rankings in CSA Research’s prestigious Top 100 LSPs report:
- #1 in Fastest Organic Growth at an outstanding 53.20%
- #5 in Fastest Growth overall
- #16 in Fastest Sustained Growth from 2022 to 2024
- #95 among the top 100 Language Service Providers worldwide
These rankings are a direct result of the trust our clients place in us and the hard work of our global team.
Real Impact: Project Highlights from 2025
The true measure of our strategy’s success lies in the results we delivered for clients. Here are a few highlights:
Strategic Cost Optimization
Faced with large-scale projects totaling millions of words for a global hardware giant, we implemented intelligent workflow optimization. By pre-processing files offline to extract only new content before uploading to our translation management system, we reduced processed word counts by 2.47 million words across eight projects — an 87% savings. This is a great example of strategic technology management creating massive business value.
Balancing Cost and Precision
For a Swedish elevator company’s highly technical installation manual covering 10 languages, we engineered a sophisticated hybrid AI workflow. AI extracted terminology, humans validated it, then we used machine translation with AI editing followed by light human post-editing focused exclusively on accuracy. The result? Significant cost savings without compromising the precision critical for safe installations.
Operational Transformation
When a rapidly growing marketing team of 29 contacts at a Chinese-based startup overwhelmed traditional communication channels with high-volume, urgent requests, we built a custom client portal. The automated system eliminated manual engineering costs, improved tracking, and enabled faster turnaround times, even supporting after-hours requests by automatically routing work to linguists in different time zones.
Pioneering AI Post-Editing
This project for a short drama producer was a bold experiment in end-to-end AI post-editing of subtitles from Chinese into English and Arabic, with no traditional human edit. Through cross-functional collaboration and continuous prompt engineering, we validated a viable AI-only workflow, delivering quality improvements and crucial insights into model performance. It proved that with the right framework, AI can drive unprecedented efficiency.
Resilience in Cloud-Based UI Testing
One major smartphone company required remote cloud platform testing for mobile UIs across 15 languages, but the project faced severe instability with cloud connections and device shortages. Additionally, the provided instructions were inconsistent with the actual UI, causing frustration and high turnover among testers. To combat this, we sent teams on-site to troubleshoot hardware issues and develop an automated tool to validate links, saving significant labor. We not only delivered on time, earning the client’s high praise, but also established a more stable, screenshot-based testing workflow for future iterations.
Looking Ahead
The landscape of global content is constantly shifting, but Clearly Local is ready. We see the future defined by increasingly sophisticated AI-driven localization that will demand deeper integration and more consultative partnerships. Our “Pivot to Intelligence” ensures we are perfectly positioned to meet the evolving needs of our clients, providing the precision and agility required to navigate the next wave of global expansion.
Here’s to the pivots ahead. Let’s move forward together!
Ready to transform your global content strategy? Contact us today to learn how Clearly Local can help you navigate the intersection of AI and human expertise.
