DeepL is a global communications platform powered by Language AI. Since 2017, the company has been on a mission to break down language barriers. Pulse 2.0 interviewed DeepL CEO Jarek Kutylowski to learn more about the company.
Jarek Kutylowski’s Background
What is Jarek Kutylowski’s background? Kutylowski said:
“I was born in Poland. We moved to Germany when I was in sixth grade. Starting a new school in a new country where I didn’t speak the language brought its own challenges, of course. But it also taught me a few useful lessons in life, including the importance of language in meeting daily needs. It’s funny, but I think if you told my school teachers from back then that I now work in languages, they would probably roll their eyes, as it was never my strong subject!”
“I also got into computers from an early age. I was drawn to them because they were a way you could solve practical problems without having to be a trained engineer, or own a bunch of tools. I would sit there at my computer for days at a time, and just build stuff that people could use. That was heaven for me. I was hooked.”
Formation Of DeepL
How did the idea for the company come together? Kutylowski shared:
“I think as Europeans, being able to understand people from different countries and cultures is part of everyday life. You could say we are hardwired for it. So, back in 2016 when my team and I were beginning to test AI models for machine translation, we quickly recognized the huge potential. We saw the next big breakthrough in translation would come through AI and deep learning – and actually, that’s what gave us the idea for the name of our company.”
“So, what started as a side project for us very quickly grew into something far more interesting. We decided to package it and offer it to the world as our first product: DeepL Translator. That was in 2017. Within a week or so, we were talking with some very impressive German and European companies who wanted to deploy it in their organizations. In a way, they saw the potential before we did! In the beginning, we were focused more on helping individuals with their translation needs – but in reality, the applications of the technology were far more significant.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Kutylowski reflected:
“There have been a lot, but seeing the business pass the one million individual users mark was a very special moment. We now have more than 100,000 business and government customers worldwide – that’s really a big achievement, and something we are all proud of.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Kutylowski explained:
“We’ve invested heavily in research and innovation to enhance our full-service Language AI platform. Our goal is to help businesses overcome language barriers and achieve seamless communication across markets, enabling them to scale and grow. Both DeepL Translate and DeepL Write Pro are available in free and paid “Pro” versions, with DeepL Pro offering expanded features and enhanced security. These tools are also accessible via the DeepL API, which we’re seeing high demand for among many of our US customers, as it allows businesses to integrate our product capabilities directly into their websites and applications.
Finally, we also just recently launched DeepL Voice in November 2024, which was a massive milestone for our business. Voice is our real-time AI-powered voice translation solution for virtual meetings and in-person, 1:1 interactions.”
Evolution Of DeepL’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Kutylowski noted:
“We invest heavily in continued innovation and evolving the DeepL Language AI platform to drive even more value and ROI for our customers. This includes enhancing the LLMs that power our technology, so that we can maintain our position at the forefront of translation and writing accuracy and fluency. We also regularly launch new products and feature updates: like our recent launch of DeepL Voice, which I mentioned earlier, or the expansion of our glossary functionality in the fall.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Kutylowski cited:
“The launch of DeepL Voice in November 2024 was a really exciting milestone for us – bringing the quality and security that DeepL is known for to real-time speech translation is really the next frontier for us as a business. DeepL is already a leader in written translation, but real-time speech translation is an entirely different story. When translating speech as it happens, you’re dealing with incomplete input, pronunciation issues, latency, and more, all of which can lead to inaccurate translations and poor user experience. These are the same challenges that are oftentimes faced in human conversation that can lead to misunderstandings, so we built a solution that would take these into account from the offset and enable businesses to break down language barriers by enabling them to communicate in multiple languages as required.
“Towards the end of last year, we also announced the opening of our second US office in New York City, which serves as our first-ever US tech hub. We’re really excited about this because we can now speed up product development in this region and give our US business customers (we work with 50%+ of the Fortune 500) even better support. It’s this kind of investment that’s helping us stay ahead of the competition and actually shape the whole direction of where Language AI is going.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Kutylowski and the team faced in building the company? Kutylowski acknowledged:
“There’s been a lot of buzz recently that big tech and general AI models have solved the problem of translation and language, but in reality, that’s simply not the case. Any organization considering adopting AI for use in their business requires highly complex requirements. While general AI models may be suitable for day-to-day, lower-volume communication needs, businesses adopting AI translation tools demand far higher levels of accuracy, customisation, data privacy and security than general models can offer. Consider the potential damage to a company’s brand image that could result from a poorly translated email or an insensitive chatbot reply during a critical customer interaction. Or the reputational impact on a law firm that fails to correctly interpret the nuanced meaning within a client’s legal document or contract. While there are inevitably certain challenges in our line of business, DeepL’s specialised models and world-class AI research enable us to achieve unparalleled levels of accuracy, reliability and stability required for business-critical use-cases.”
Funding
When asking Kutylowski about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“While we don’t share revenue figures and other key financials externally, what I can tell you is that back in May 2024 we announced new $300 million investment at a $2 billion valuation. This was, and still is, tremendously exciting for us of course, and now our priority is building further long-term growth. So, we’re laser-focused on continuing to invest heavily in research, expanding our platform’s capabilities – and meeting the growing demand we’re seeing in core markets like the US.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Kutylowski assessed:
“Well, global demand for value-driving AI solutions among businesses is on the rise. According to a recent IBM study, 42% are already actively deploying AI and 40% are exploring its potential. Within this rapidly-evolving landscape, DeepL is leading the way in applying specialized AI to transform the $67.9 billion language industry – which is set to grow to $95.3 billion by 2028!”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Kutylowski affirmed:
“Our specialization on solving the challenge of language specifically is really a core differentiator for us – we’re different from general-purpose AI tools in that our AI translation and writing solutions are purpose-built to solve communication and language use-cases. This specialization enables us to achieve higher accuracy and precision while minimizing hallucinations and misinformation. In blind tests, professional translators found that DeepL’s translations require significantly fewer edits than other platforms, with Google and ChatGPT requiring between two and three times as many edits to get the same quality.”
“Security and data privacy are also central to DeepL’s product offering. We adhere to the highest enterprise-grade privacy and security standards to protect user data, including state-of-the-art data encryption and GDPR, ISO 27001, and Soc2 Type 2 compliance. That’s vital when you’re working with customers in highly-regulated sectors like legal and financial services.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Kutylowski about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“We work with thousands of businesses, including 50% of the Fortune500, including leaders like Zendesk, Coursera, and more. Europe’s largest railway operator, Deutsche Bahn, is a great example of a business using our technology to significantly improve the way they communicate and operate – with two-thirds of its workforce based outside of Germany, it needed a solution that would enable seamless communication between teams, while taking into account things like industry-specific jargon, dialects and idioms.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Kutylowski concluded:
“Looking ahead, there’s no doubt we will remain focused on innovation and research, and finding new ways to solve any business challenges related to language and communication. What we’re hearing from customers is they want even more interactivity and personalisation – and that’s an area we’re already making progress in, with features like the new glossary generator that I mentioned earlier.”
