The Blackbird Roost | May 2026 | Issue #3

Each issue brings a curated mix of what matters: practical insights from the field, fresh thinking on where content and language operations are headed, product updates you can actually use, and a bit of fun along the way.
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But first, read Issue #1 and Issue #2 of the 'Roost in case you've missed them!

Let’s get into it.

What’s New With Blackbird?

Welcome, Erik!

We are very excited to have established a strategic partnership with Erik Vogt, an independent advisor specializing in AI-enabled transformation, value framing, and organizational design.

Our collaboration with Erik is focusing on advancing strategic and transformational initiatives in language technology, with particular emphasis on structured A/B testing frameworks and next-generation architectures for multilingual content operations. Central to this effort is Blacklake — our emerging vision for an AI-native content operations layer designed to unify data, workflows, and models into a continuously learning system. [Read our full announcement on Multilingual Magazine]

Speaking of Blacklake: Our Journey So Far

These past six months have been the most important for us since we came out of stealth with Blackbird in October 2022.
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Exactly three years after that out-of-stealth event, we launched Blacklake in Monterey, California at LocWorld, adding content memory and a context layer to orchestration. Just a week later, it won the TAUS Innovation Award: https://slator.com/blackbird-unveils-blacklake-wins-taus-innovation-award-future-of-memory/. It was a strong start.
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In December, we launched our first production runs flights with Blacklake focusing on in-context editing/syncing and achieving leveraging outside of TMSs.
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In January, we started deploying our new workflow engine -- we built it from scratch for agentic scale and enterprise robustness. We also specifically built it for Blacklake and the ability to process billions of words.
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In February, we introduced Alignment—the ability to retroactively fill a “lake” with existing content. Instead of rigid, sentence-based segmentation, Blacklake aligns content as it exists: structurally and contextually, making it immediately usable for translation, editing, and querying. More: https://docs.blackbird.io/blacklake/alignment/​
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In March, we introduced Strategies—reusable leveraging policies that define which content is trustworthy in a given workflow, adding a governance layer to matching. More: https://multilingual.com/blackbird-introduces-strategies-blacklake-govern-ai-linguistic-reuse/​

In April, we introduced “Dark Lake” (dark mode) UX and enhanced Glossaries and Style Guides. Style guides apply rule sets for formatting and spelling, using both predefined rules and custom instructions. This makes Blacklake relevant for monolingual workflows too—leveraging brand guidelines, style guides, and content history, including analytics metadata is a strong fit for marketing use cases.
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𝗡𝗲𝘅𝘁 - 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿! -, 𝘄𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗖𝗟𝗜 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝘂𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲. 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘃𝗶𝗮 𝗖𝗟𝗜 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄𝘀—𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝘆𝗹𝗲 𝗴𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀, 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴.

Nimdzi Tech of the Week - Again!

We won Nimdzi's coveted "Tech of the Week" accolade for the first time in 2024 -- for Blackbird. This month, Nimdzi Insights recognized Blacklake, highlighting its innovation in multilingual content operations.
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​"With its Blacklake platform and new Strategies feature, Blackbird is rethinking how organizations reuse linguistic data in the age of AI. Instead of relying on traditional translation memory systems, this approach focuses on context, quality, and workflow relevance."
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​[Read Nimdzi's full review]

Optimizely App Launch

Optimizely (formerly Episerver) turns content management into a growth engine by seamlessly blending CMS, experimentation, and personalization so teams can build, test, and optimize digital experiences in real time. Beta app now available, with further refinements and enhancements coming continously. [Tech Docs]

Product Updates

The Blackbird product team is always cooking up some awesome stuff. Here’s a curated list of recent goodies. [See All Release Notes]

Visual Metadata in Blacklake

Blacklake not only displays metadata such as AIQE (MTQE) scores for each unit of a content asset, but now also provides an intuitive new visual layer on top of this data.

Color-coded indicators—ranging from blue and green to yellow and red—allow us to instantly assess translation quality at a glance, without needing to interpret raw scores.

By turning abstract quality scores into clear visual signals, Blacklake reduces cognitive load and helps teams focus instantly on what matters most.

Beyond True/False: Multiple Decisions have arrived to all EU and US Users

Conditions have been a powerful workflow orchestration component to Blackbird. And that just got even more powerful. Introducing multiple decisions! Use metadata and logic from your workflow steps to choose your own adventure! Adding three or more decisions to a Bird is now easier than ever.
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A few favourite use cases:
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​1. AIQE score based routing (see below).
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​2. AI engine or model curation based on language pairs.
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​3. Content risk & compliance routing. Automatically classify content upstream (e.g. legal, medical, brand-sensitive, user-generated), and route accordingly.
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4. Data quality–driven pipeline branching. Assess input data quality before processing:
Clean/structured → fully automated workflow.
Partially messy → preprocessing (cleanup, normalization, enrichment).
Poor quality → fallback workflow or human validation checkpoint
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TBX Interoperability in Blacklake

Terminology management can not only be embedded and fully automated, but through .TBX interoperability, migration to Blacklake is now easier than ever.
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Term bases (TBX) are crucial because they ensure consistent, accurate use of domain-specific terminology across languages and workflows, reducing ambiguity and preserving meaning at scale. Users can now export a term base from any TMS, MT app or even a spreadsheet, and import it into Blacklake. Blacklake can leverage your term bases as part of "Prepare Content" actions.

Blackbird Unboxed -- with Jan Hinrichs

As the producer and host of the wildly successful @TheObiJanNetwork channel on YouTube, Jan covers both the tools and the people behind the transformation of language technology. Alongside Language Tech Unboxed, a series that explores the latest tools, launches, and industry shifts, Jan also host LocLunch Expresso — short, personal interviews with LocLunch ambassadors from around the world. His conversations highlight the human side of change: real professionals facing real challenges in localization, AI, and global content. In Berlin, Jan sat down with Blackbird founder Bruno Bitter for a pre-conference chat at GALA-WorldReady.

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Blackbirds Around the Globe 🌍

GlobalSaké at Adobe HQ, San Francisco

Our VP of Solutions (and the host of our ShiftLeft Podcast!), Dan Milczarski, and Blackbird cofounder Michael Kriz was in San Francisco to take part in the unique experience called GlobalSaké. Blackbird sponsored the special saké reception.

Blackbird in London (19-23 May)

For the third time this year, we will be in London, one of the largest hubs for Blackbird. On 22 May, Bruno and Michael will also be attending SlatorCon at the Nobu Hotel Portman Square in the heart of London. Reach out to arrange a meeting in person!

TAUS (Rome), 18-20 June

Mathijs Sonnemans (VP of Product and Blacklake Czar) will be in Rome for TAUS's conference on language technology and AI.
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Catch his panel on: translation workflows as we know them are becoming obsolete as AI takes over core translation tasks. Translation technology is evolving towards AI Orchestration Platforms and Marketplaces, striking the right balance between AI agents for optimized automation and expert human intelligence for quality and reliability.
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Mathijs - as tradition now - will also be pitching in the TAUS Massively Multilingual Contest. He is a force to be reckoned with as he won the previous contest in Salt Lake City!

Thanks for being part of the Blackbird community. Let’s keep flying faster together.

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