The AI Ready Localizer #5: CustomGPTs, ActionGPTs, and the Rise of Agentic AI

A Practical Guide to Choosing the Right AI for Localization and Internationalization

🔥 Hot off the press: my latest post on The AI-Ready Localizer is free to read — but only until Tuesday, June 10th. After that, it’s paywalled. Catch it while you can!

The more I dive into AI tools and systems, the more convinced I am: the technology is here, and it’s more transformational than anything we’ve seen before, even the Internet.

But implementing AI correctly is far from easy. Companies are about to face deep, structural challenges.

The first challenge is legacy. Localization departments — and really, most departments — built their workflows and selected their tools in the pre-AI era. Bolting new technologies onto outdated systems is a mistake. It’s not a fix; it’s a liability.

To make matters worse, these legacy systems are heavily entangled. Think of a TMS deeply customized with bespoke connectors to CMSs and other platforms — an endless web of dependencies.

Starting fresh sounds brutal — years of investment and customization tossed aside. But honestly, it’s likely the only real path forward.

The second, and arguably more delicate, challenge is the human factor. Many professionals have spent years mastering their roles, building deep expertise. Suddenly, the foundations of their work are shifting. Tasks they once excelled at are now automated, and AI often does them faster, better, and cheaper.

This doesn’t mean humans are obsolete. Far from it. But the type of human needed is evolving.

If traditional localization departments prized engineers who could write automation scripts and managers skilled in following complex workflows, today’s demands are different. AI has mastered automation, scripting, and task management.

What’s needed now are professionals who can combine technical fluency and strategy mindset with deep human nuance — people who know how to plug in LLMs and understand language, culture, and messaging well enough to craft prompts and outputs that resonate.

The localization departments of the future will likely be smaller, sharper, and more strategic, led by architects or orchestrators who design the systems rather than just operate them.

Linguists are far from disappearing — but their role is evolving. They will shift from pure translators to cultural validators, ensuring the final message resonates with their market.

Their work will center more on data preparation, validation, and strategic adaptation than simply translating text. Proactivity will be key: they’ll be expected to juggle diverse tasks and make smart decisions about cultural nuance and market impact. Skills like market research, creativity, and SEO will become just as critical as linguistic expertise.

And if there’s one thing that is truly invaluable, it’s data. Language experts — those who own terminology and brand messaging across markets — will become key strategic assets, shaping how brands communicate and scale globally.

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So what can we do right now before the frustration sets in, before our current tools start feeling like fossils from the Stone Age?

There are ways to start integrating AI into our workflows even before the next wave of tools arrives — and make no mistake, that wave is coming sooner than we think.

In this post, I’ll take a close look at Custom GPTs and Action GPTs, and end with a few thoughts on what a fully automated, agentic AI system might look like in the near future.

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🧠 CustomGPT: The Localization FAQ Guru