Microsoft Translator is a translation service for text, speech, and conversations, available as consumer apps and as the Translator API and Speech service in Azure AI Services. People use the apps to translate real-time conversations, menus, and street signs, including while offline, as well as websites and documents. Apps exist for Windows, Android, and iOS, and an Outlook add-in handles email. Businesses can add text and speech translation to their own products through the API, and a free monthly text translation subscription is offered for developers who want to try it. Live captioning supports classrooms with cross-language understanding.
Microsoft Translator covers three groups. Travelers and everyday users translate conversations and signs on a phone, and families or friends who speak different languages chat through a multi-device conversation feature. Businesses and developers globalize customer interactions by translating text and speech inside apps, support systems, and meetings. Educators and school administrators build more inclusive classrooms for students and parents with live captioning and cross-language understanding. Teams that already work in Microsoft 365, Outlook, or Azure find it familiar, since it sits inside the same ecosystem and supports many languages including Spanish, German, Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish.
Typical scenarios include a tourist pointing a phone at a menu while offline, two people holding a live conversation in different languages, and a teacher showing live captions to a class with students from several countries. A company can translate customer messages in its support workflow through the API, or add speech translation to a video call tool. An office worker can translate an email from within Outlook, while a developer trials the free monthly text translation subscription to prototype a feature. The company also publishes a blog announcing new languages and features, plus support resources for each product.
