1,081 documents, $2.31 each
I replaced a $245/document translation workflow with a $2.31/document AI pipeline.
We needed 1,081 documents translated from English to Italian in 2.5 weeks. Traditional translation services quoted ~$245/doc. We didn't have the time or want to spend the budget.
So I designed and built a multi-agent pipeline (shoutout to Michael Carmody for helping push this across the finish line under a tight deadline).
As a step 0, we would categorize documents based off of file type and structure. Dependent on those two characteristics, we'd send documents to different agentic workflows. Here's the one ~85% of documents went through.
Stage 1 · Translation
Each document was chunked and assigned to multiple independent translator agents. Every translator had a dedicated critic agent that reviewed its output for accuracy, tone, and terminology. An arbitrator agent resolved disagreements and produced the final translation for each chunk.
Stage 2 · Document reconstruction
Automated rebuilding of production-ready documents, preserving original formatting, diagrams, tables, and typographic conventions across PDFs and presentations.
Stage 3 · Verification swarm
21 agents running in parallel on a file-system-based inbox structure, each equipped with custom skills for format validation, translation QA, and cross-reference checking. Documents flowed through inboxes, got verified, and either got sent to be retranslated, moved to another set of agents' inboxes or moved to our verified done folder, all autonomous.
The numbers
Total: 1,081 documents. 2.2M words. 2.5 weeks. $2,495 total cost. 99% cheaper than the alternative.
Three things I learned
- Agent architecture matters more than model choice. The translator/critic/arbitrator loop caught errors that a single-pass translation missed entirely. Adversarial structure forces higher quality output.
- Give agents real tools, not just prompts. The verification swarm worked because each agent had custom skills, OCR comparison, formatting checks, terminology validation. Agents without tools are just expensive autocomplete.
- The hardest part wasn't the AI, it was the formatting. Translating text is solved. Reconstructing production-ready documents with correct formatting, preserved diagrams, and proper Italian typographic conventions took 90% of the engineering time. Think of the slightly tilted scans of paper from 2010.
The era of paying $245/doc for bulk translation is over. Not because AI translation is perfect, but because AI + structured verification is good enough at 1% of the cost.
Postscript
First thing I did when it was done: installed iTerm2. 21 panes, verifiers, warning handlers, error handlers, recheckers, and a status agent reporting system health. Watching it run was the most fun I've had in a terminal.