This article by Business Turku was originally published April 7th 2025 on their website.

The Finnish language technology specialist Lingsoft develops innovations in language management together with universities and businesses. In a world of rapidly evolving technologies, collaboration is a necessity.

Combining artificial intelligence and human expertise is the societal hot topic of recent years. In Lingsoft, this approach has been the norm for decades.

– We produce AI-powered language services across various sectors multilingually, ensuring that human work becomes faster and easier, Chief Marketing Officer Laura Karlsson says.

The company is best known for its language technology-based translation services. Customers include for instance the European Commission, governmental organisations, municipalities, and healthcare organisations.

Lingsoft translates around 150 million words per year, and the services cover 200 language pairs. The company cooperates with approximately 800 language specialists.

– They finalise the text according to the customer’s needs. The better AI technology evolves, the more the human can focus on for instance linguistic style and specialised terminology, Chief Services Officer Riikka Heikkilä says.

Client-Specific Technology Solutions

Lingsoft’s language services include much more than just translations. The company has technology solutions for speech recognition, summaries, text quality checking, subtitling, and for making the text more accessible.

The company’s service development is done by a 30-employee technology team, which includes specialists in for instance AI, software development and system administration. Lingsoft does close cooperation with for instance the natural language processing group at the University of Turku.

– Our product development has very much to do with how we can adapt open-source technologies to fit our use cases and product processes, Chief Technology Officer Michael Stormbom says.

CEO Juhani Reiman adds that Lingsoft’s core expertise lies in customising AI solutions to fit the customers’ needs, also considering specialised terminology, information security and efficiency.

Research Collaboration at the Core of Business

Lingsoft’s business is based on technologies that are evolving at a rapid pace. According to Reiman, research collaboration is essential if one wishes to stay at the forefront of development and succeed in global competition.

New language technology solutions are created in projects carried out in collaboration with Finnish and European universities, companies, and research institutions. Language management is needed in various occasions.

For instance in the Necoverse project, Lingsoft’s solutions advance multilingual, virtual interaction in shipbuilding. In the Medallion-project, Lingsoft develops language technology solutions for managing text and data masses in health care.

– We are tackling the same challenge everywhere: how to make communication high-quality, compliant with industry standards, real-time, multilingual, and understandable, Reiman says.

International Business, Bbased in Finland

Very often the development projects are funded by the EU or Business Finland. Participation requires a lot of effort, but Lingsoft has concluded that it is worthwhile.

– The projects bring us knowhow and partners, Reiman says.

Often, the project outcomes benefit both the participating organisations and the society at large. Laura Karlsson regrets how often the good news of the results remain hidden due to poor communication organisation in the projects.

Senior Advisor Ossi Tuusvuori hopes that the projects could increasingly lead to the creation of international business opportunities.

– A major issue in Finland is that we may not know how to go abroad together and create service products that are replicable and scalable.

In the future, Lingsoft wants to lead the way in the development of innovative language technologies. They also want to foster the internationalisation of Southwest Finland, Finland, and Europe. Many businesses in their field have been sold abroad, but Finnish identity is a core value at Lingsoft.

– We want to have expertise in this field in Finland and in Europe. It won’t work if all businesses are sold primarily to the USA, Reiman says.