Automatic translation in public services: A survey of the Finnish public sector

Sıla Ilkılıç, Maarit Koponen, Mary Nurminen


Abstract
This paper presents findings from a survey on the use of automatic translation in Finnish public services, conducted in autumn 2025. Adapted from a similar survey conducted at the University of Bristol, the present survey focused on users whose main professional activity is not translation or interpreting. The study analyzed those professionals’ habits around automatic translation use, the purposes and the contexts involved, and the respondents’ satisfaction and confidence in using automatic translation. Approximately half of the respondents reported using automatic translation at least once a week and across a range of scenarios, including public-facing situations. While the survey sample is not representative of the Finnish public sector as a whole, the data suggests that automatic translation may play a role in the everyday work of at least some public service employees.
Anthology ID:
2026.eamt-1.45
Volume:
Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (Volume 1)
Month:
June
Year:
2026
Address:
Tilburg, The Netherlands
Editors:
Dimitar Shterionov, Eva Vanmassenhove, Mirella De Sisto, Fred Blain, Javad Pourmostafa Roshan Sharami, Lisa Lepp, Chiara Manna, Argentina Anna Rescigno, Alina Karakanta, Ayla Rigouts Terryn, Manuel Lardelli, Natalia Resende, Elena Murgolo, Janiça Hackenbuchner, Anna Zaretskaya, Miquel Esplà-Gomis, Thierry Etchegoyhen, Dagmar Gromann, Rachel Bawden, Barry Haddow, Sara Szoc, Mikel Forcada, Helena Moniz
Venue:
EAMT
SIG:
Publisher:
European Association for Machine Translation
Note:
Pages:
719–732
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.45/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Sıla Ilkılıç, Maarit Koponen, and Mary Nurminen. 2026. Automatic translation in public services: A survey of the Finnish public sector. In Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (Volume 1), pages 719–732, Tilburg, The Netherlands. European Association for Machine Translation.
Cite (Informal):
Automatic translation in public services: A survey of the Finnish public sector (Ilkılıç et al., EAMT 2026)
Copy Citation:
PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.45.pdf