Translated Announces the 2026 Imminent Research Report, “The Age of Experience in AI”

TRANSLATED S.r.l. - ROME, 25 March 2026 — Translated announced the release of the 2026 Research Report by Imminent, its research center dedicated to exploring the frontiers of language, technology, and human creativity. The report signals a fundamental paradigm shift in artificial intelligence: the transition from models trained on static, archived human knowledge to systems that learn through direct interaction with the physical world.

Titled “The Age of Experience in AI," the report explores how the next generation of AI will move beyond the "internet-harvesting" phase to an era of artificial intelligence which learns by processing real-time data from sensors, cameras, and physical actions. These new machines are beginning to learn how to learn from the world around them.

A Seismic Shift in Machine Intelligence

The core thesis of the 2026 report is that we are moving past the limitations of large language models (LLMs) trained on historical data.

As Marco Trombetti, CEO of Translated, writes in the report’s opening: “We are on the cusp of a seismic shift. With Experience in AI, artificial intelligence models learn not from knowledge recorded in the past, but directly from their own actions. We are not only giving machines intelligence, but also the ability to feel: giving them the senses to read reality.”

Luca De Biase, Imminent Editorial Director, explains: “In recent years, we have observed a divergence in the development of artificial intelligence. On one side, improvements driven purely by scale appear to be slowing unless they incorporate additional capabilities such as web search and reasoning. On the other side, systems that interact with context in real time show great potential but require further scientific breakthroughs. This divergence is giving rise to different scenarios, creating opportunities for new players and new design processes.”

Key Findings and Strategic Pillars

• Scientific Breakthroughs vs. Computing Power: The report questions whether this "leap" requires raw processing power or new scientific foundations. Expert contributor Alex Waibel notes that while neural networks have laid the groundwork, new breakthroughs are essential to bridge the gap between perception and real-world action.
• The Role of Human Imagination: Renowned designer Don Norman argues that the trajectory of AI is not inevitable. He stresses that the humanities and social sciences
  must guide AI development to avoid bias and ensure these "affordance spaces" improve quality of life rather than merely automating tasks.
• Plurality Over Monopoly: A central theme of the 2026 report is the rejection of a "one-size-fits-all" AI. Trombetti argues that because language and culture are diverse, AI must be plural. By training models on decentralized, user-controlled information, the global community can guard against the monopolization of intelligence.

Cultural Plurality: Japan, Chile, and the UAE

To test the impact of "Experience in AI" across different societies, Imminent conducted deep-dive studies into three distinct cultural models:

• Japan: Intelligence is viewed as "layered," where Physical AI gains legitimacy by supporting social harmony and "reading the air" in shared spaces.
• Chile: AI is negotiated through a lens of relational and ecological accountability, where technology must align with communal and environmental stewardship.
• United Arab Emirates: A clear distinction is made between "smartness" (technical solving) and "perceptiveness" (social intuition), with AI welcomed as highly capable infrastructure rather than a social actor.

Europe’s Strategic Crossroads

The report addresses a critical question for the "Old Continent": Will Europe remain in a position of inferiority to the U.S. and China? Martin Hullin and Mariarosaria Taddeo argue that Europe’s path to competitiveness lies in "Innovation by Governance." By treating ethics, security, and cultural sensitivity as a design layer rather than a regulatory brake, Europe can lead in the deployment of "trustworthy" and "context-sensitive" AI.

Practical Applications

From hyper-accurate weather forecasting to real-time cardiovascular care and disaster management, the Imminent 2026 report showcases how "blended systems"—combining machine learning with human expertise—are already creating faster, smarter, and more equitable responses to global challenges.

Conclusion

"Experience in AI" concludes that the future of technology is not a single, global trajectory but a collection of culturally shaped paths. As the report states: "Experience in AI will be plural, because intelligence itself is plural."

About Translated

Translated is a leading language services provider and a pioneer in using artificial intelligence (AI) to assist professional translators. The company was founded in 1999 by linguist Isabelle Andrieu and computer scientist Marco Trombetti with the mission to allow everyone to understand and be understood in their own language. In pursuit of its mission, Translated invented context-adaptive machine translation (MT) in 2012. Translated’s work is trusted by the largest translation buyers in the world and has been recognized as leading in AI-powered translation technology by IDC Marketscape, CSA Research, and Gartner.

In 2024, Translated launched Lara, a breakthrough translation AI that outperforms leading machine translation and approaches the quality of top-tier professional translators. With Lara, Translated combines the sensitivity of over 500,000 native-speaking professional translators with the speed and capability of machines, making it possible to tackle once unimaginable localization projects. Today, Translated delivers fast, consistent, high-quality translations to over 300,000 customers in 200 languages and over 40 subject areas.

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Translated
Emma gamba
emma@translated.com