LIVE FROM MOBILE WORLD LIVE UNWRAPPED DIGITAL INDUSTRIES: Capgemini Invent revealed its secure real-time AI translation service, BabelSpeak, is showing strong pilot results following its launch through Telenor’s AI Factory, an initiative created in partnership with Nvidia to accelerate AI deployment across the Nordics.

Thordur Arnason, global AI GTM lead at Capgemini Invent, told Mobile World Live the service has been trialled with DNB, Norway’s largest bank, to assist Ukrainian refugees, and extended to the Red Cross and the Norwegian police for use cases including border control.

He emphasised that BabelSpeak is designed for sensitive, privacy-critical scenarios, highlighting Capgemini’s fully controlled AI pipeline spanning speech-to-text, translation and synthetic speech output. While consumer tools like Google Translate and ChatGPT may be sufficient for many situations, “what we are targeting, though, are these sensitive conversations where privacy and security is key”.

Efficiency and cost benefits are also major drivers for adoption: “This is a replacement for human translators. We are able to produce translations at a fraction of the cost,” Arnason noted. The Red Cross, for example, previously had to limit the use of translators due to high costs, but now sees potential to scale BabelSpeak across operations at under 10 per cent of previous translation expenses.

With traditional human translators, “you cannot do ad hoc, short planning windows, or the kind of translation situations that we can meet with AI”, Aranson explained, adding that public sector spending on translation services in Norway alone reaches roughly €150 million annually.

Meanwhile, Johannes Aasheim, head of telecommunications Nordics at Capgemini Invent reflected on the initiative’s inception, which came after Telenor and Nvidia announced a partnership at Mobile World Congress in 2024 to accelerate the operator’s internal AI capabilities and provide AI solutions for businesses across the Nordics. Capgemini was then brought in to support market strategy and boost AI. “Together with Nvidia and Telenor, we pushed for a launch within months. We wanted to have an MVP in the market very quickly,” he added.

Looking ahead, the company sees potential for adoption across a wide range of sectors, including telecommunications, manufacturing and energy industries. Aranson added that the service “will be in pilot at least six months more before we are happy”.

But the next stage of the rollout will focus on expanding language coverage, testing translation accuracy across 100 supported languages, and scaling the platform for high-volume, real-time use cases.

To watch the full interview click here.