Hello to the translators who still want to own something no algorithm can copy,
Let’s get this out in the open.
Anyone can push text into ChatGPT or DeepL.
That’s not mastery… that’s commodity. And commodities always race to the bottom.
This upcoming week, I’ll be posting my interview with Koloyan, a translator, interpreter, and journalist in Bulgaria.
He’s been leveraging CotranslatorAI in ways I hadn’t even imagined. Won’t it be nice to hear crazy innovative AI techniques from someone other than me?
In our talk, he reminded me of something important.
The real edge isn’t just knowing how to use CotranslatorAI… it’s building your own prompts and workflows that no one else has.
Think about it. When you develop prompts that lock in your style, your terminology, your shortcuts, your formatting rules… you’ve just created intellectual property.
That’s not something a client can replicate with a free tool. That’s not something a big LSP can strip away. That’s yours.
Here’s why this matters.
- A weather report becomes a two-minute task instead of twenty because of your prompt.
- A legal contract stays consistent because your glossary is embedded in the workflow.
- A long interview flows smoothly because your diarization instructions are baked in.
Each of these is repeatable. Each saves you time, lowers stress, and produces output closer to publish-ready.
And together, they add up to something you own that sets you apart.
Koloyan put it this way: prompting is like coding in human language. You don’t have to learn Python. You just need to treat your prompts like assets you refine, reuse, and protect.
This is the shift.
AI alone doesn’t replace translators. But translators who treat their prompts as intellectual property replace the ones who don’t.
Keep building the assets no client can take from you.
Steven
PS – If you found today’s AI Mastery Insights useful, forward this email to a friend. And suggest they sign up for their own copy here: https://cf.cotranslatorai.com/newsletter-optin-copy