AI Translation Profiles: Configuring Linguistic Assets and Translation Engines

AI Translation Profiles are pre-configured settings that control how translation engines and linguistic assets work together in your Smartcat workspace. Use profiles to create standardized workflows for different clients, departments, or use cases — ensuring the right translation memories, glossaries, and AI engines are applied consistently across projects.

Use AI Translation Profiles when you need to:

• Apply different linguistic assets (TMs, glossaries) to different clients or departments

• Control which translation engines are used for specific language pairs

• Prevent new translation memories from being automatically added to all projects

• Disable AI translation entirely for certain workflows

• Maintain consistency across projects without manual configuration each time

• AI Translation Profiles are available on all paid Smartcat plans

• You must have workspace administrator permissions to create or modify profiles

• Profiles apply at the workspace level. They cannot be shared across workspaces

• By default, new translation memories are automatically added to all profiles unless you disable this setting

• Profiles do not override project-level translation rules. They provide defaults that can be adjusted per project

⚠️ If you need to use only specific TMs for certain clients, create a dedicated profile with only those TMs selected, then set it as the default or apply it during project creation.

Step 1 — Access AI Translation Profiles

1. Go to Settings in your Smartcat workspace.

2. Select AI Translation Profiles from the menu.

3. Click Create new profile or select an existing profile to edit.

Step 2 — Configure basic profile settings

When creating a new profile, you can start from scratch by clicking + Create profile, create from an existing profile template by clicking the three dots to the right of an existing profile and selecting + Create from existing , or duplicate an existing profile in your workspace.

1. Enter a Profile name that identifies its purpose (e.g., "Client A - Marketing", "Legal Department").

2. Open Additional attributes to link the profile to specific clients or departments. Select the Clients and Subjects from the menus.

Step 3 — Configure translation memories

1. In the Translation Memories configuration section, select which TMs to include in this profile. Smartcat adds all TMs by default, and you can remove TMs by clicking the Unlink icon to the right of the TM. You can connect TMs to the profile by clicking Connect Translation Memories and selecting one from the list.

3. Toggle dialect/root language settings for source and target languages if needed.

2. Click Configuration and enable Auto-link new translation memories to automatically add newly created linguistic resources to this profile. Disable this option to prevent new TMs from being automatically added.

3. Toggle dialect/root language settings for source and target languages if needed.

⚠️ You can add up to 250 Translation Memories to a single AI Translation Profile.

Step 3 — Configure glossaries

1. Under Linguistic resources, click the Glossaries tab

2. Select which glossaries to include in this profile. Smartcat adds all glossaries by default, and you can remove glossaries by clicking the Unlink icon to the right of the glossary. You can connect glossaries to the profile by clicking Connect Glossaries and selecting one from the list.

3. Click Configuration and enable Auto-link new translation memories to automatically add newly created linguistic resources to this profile. Disable this option to prevent new TMs from being automatically added.

4. Toggle dialect/root language settings for source and target languages if needed.

Step 4 — Configure Translation Engines

1. Under Linguistic resources, click the Translation engines tab.

2. To use only TMs without AI translation, disable translation engines by clicking Settings to the right of Linguistic resources and disabling Translation engines.

3. To keep AI translation enabled, proceed to engine configuration.

Step 5 — Set engine rules for language pairs

1. Under Linguistic resources, click the Translation Engines tab.

2. Click Add new rule to select a specific engine for a language pair.

3. Add multiple engines if needed. Drag and drop rules to set priority order (lower numbers = higher priority).

4. Google NMT remains available as a fallback option. When the fallback engine is enabled, Smartcat automatically reruns translation using Google NMT as a reliable backup if the primary engine fails.

Step 6 — Configure advanced engine settings

1. In the Translation Engines tab, click Engine configuration.

2. Toggle Fallback translation off if you want only your chosen engine used (empty segments will require human review if the engine fails).

3. Toggle Use LLMs off to keep translations consistent with TMs and glossaries only.

Step 7 — Apply the profile

1. Click Save as new profile

2. Set the profile as your workspace default, or

3. Select the profile when creating new projects, or

4. Use project templates with the profile pre-selected.