Hi Steven,

GPT-5 has arrived.

And the reaction?

Let’s just say… it’s more of a polite golf clap than a standing ovation.

Sure, the AI world lit up with the usual launch buzz. But in translator circles, nobody’s exactly spilling coffee over their keyboards.

It’s not the tidal wave GPT-4 was.

That one knocked us sideways with its jump in translation quality.

This one? You might need a high-precision “difference-o-meter” to spot the improvements in most real-world translation tasks.

That’s not bad news. In fact, it’s almost a relief.

Because for months, there’s been this quiet worry that the next big leap would chew up another chunk of our edge. That we’d wake up one morning and find even less daylight between what we deliver and what the machines can spit out.

This time, the gap hasn’t closed much.

If you want to test it yourself, GPT-5 is already sitting there in CotranslatorAI.

Pick “gpt-5-chat-latest,” turn the system prompt off, and set temperature to 1.00. That’ll get you as close as possible to the ChatGPT experience. Run a few side-by-side comparisons and see if you notice anything worth writing home about.

But here’s the thing.

This is not the time to kick back and think we’ve been handed a breather.

Generative AI is still reshaping our industry… and it’s only one piece of the puzzle.

Automation and machine translation have been eating away at the translator’s role for years. Others are still grinding away in the background, moving more and more volume through automated pipelines. Faster. Cheaper. And often, uglier.

If you’re counting on a slowdown, you’re counting wrong.

The smart play is to keep building your value.

Lean into the new models, yes. Work faster. Work smarter. But also keep sharpening what AI can’t touch—your judgment, your creativity, your ability to understand and connect with human readers.

Experiment with techniques from the Micro Iterative AI Frameworks. Try new prompts. Tweak your workflow until it’s a well-oiled machine that runs circles around the machines.

And if you’ve already tested GPT-5 on real jobs, I want to hear about it.

What’s different in the quality? The accuracy? The style? Did it surprise you… or was it just GPT-4 in a new suit?

Share your findings.

The more we know, the more we can stay ahead while the tech keeps moving forward.

Keep testing. Keep learning. Keep building the value only you can bring. Because when the next real leap hits, the translators who’ve stayed sharp will be the ones who stay in the game.

Talk soon,

Steven