At any given moment, there’s an employee somewhere in the world tuning out of a phishing training module that was translated from another language. Every word is rendered correctly, yet the learner still stops paying attention.
In these situations, the translation often gets the blame for not engaging the learner, but the real culprit is design. When training isn’t made for international consumption in the first place, the module is set up for failure regardless of what happens when it reaches the translator.
The Workforce Outgrew the Workflow
Global teams are the norm, not the exception. Modern companies may have a headquarters in Munich, a sales team in New York City and contractors in Singapore. And while they may be globally distributed, they all need security awareness training that protects them from the latest cyber threats. That training must be delivered in a timely fashion with the same quality standards.
Yet despite the workforce getting more diverse and distributed, translation often remains an afterthought. Training is designed to solve an immediate business need, like a newly discovered phishing attack hitting the company’s inbox, and so it’s created with a “build first, translate later” approach.
The problem is that while you can translate the words, the lesson isn’t going to drive behavior change if the content and concepts aren’t built to survive translation.
What Makes Training Translation-Ready?
Translation-ready training doesn’t come from a process performed after production. It’s a discipline that starts the moment someone comes up with an idea for a new module.
Idioms and analogies mean nothing outside their native language. Humor and cultural references fall flat when taken out of context for a global audience. Security awareness training is especially tricky because complex concepts and acronyms need to be translated both literally and figuratively. If the training module doesn’t make those concepts universally intuitive, the lesson won’t resonate with the end user and drive better security habits.
The fix is designing training from the early conceptual stages for translation. This means universal terms, short, direct sentences and simplified concepts. Training built this way doesn’t lose its meaning when it crosses borders because it was made to ensure every concept was foundationally sound in the first place.
How Does the KnowBe4 Studios Team Ensure Translation-Readiness?
KnowBe4 Studios has understood the value of this discipline since its formation. It’s why our training content averages a 4.7 user rating out of 5, with more than 22 million annual training completions in the 45 languages and dialects we support outside of English. We put the craft and quality control first, and the global scale follows naturally as a result.
Every module is written to travel before it’s ever translated: plain language, culturally neutral framing, simplified design and education structures. This approach ensures each lesson transfers with clear, effective learning moments and that nothing gets lost in translation. This foundation also gives our team of localization specialists a clean slate to then tailor the training to the target audience, making it culturally relevant to boost engagement and knowledge retention.
Using Our Localization Infrastructure to Deliver Training That Adapts to Each Learner, Automatically
Your security awareness program needs to adapt to the needs of diverse global audiences, and that includes delivering high-quality training in each learner’s language. But your training rollout also needs to move quickly. That’s why we’re introducing new features that help create and manage localized training experiences more efficiently.
A new feature central to this is AI-powered translations. With this feature enabled, you can choose to have AI translations created for the language of your choice automatically when new content is added to your training library. You can also request AI translations into 51 different languages for any individual piece of content in the ModStore with the click of a button. AI translations apply to text content and audio/video captions across training modules, mobile-first modules, video modules and audiocasts.
Our AI translations use the quality infrastructure that our localization team built over the last eight years to enhance translation quality. It uses our official 35-language glossary to ensure translations don’t deviate across multiple modules and adhere to approved tone and style guides to stay consistent with our professionally localized content. Real linguists and quality assurance specialists monitor AI translations and customer feedback, creating a real usage feedback loop that improves translation quality over time.
Of course, AI translation output is not equivalent to professionally localized content; quality may vary by language and module. That’s why professionally localized versions replace the AI translation as they become available, ensuring learners receive the full benefit of human linguistic expertise. This feature just gives you more flexibility to roll out the content you want to use into languages that aren’t available at the moment, with a higher quality standard.
We’re also simplifying the way localized training experiences are managed through other minor enhancements. For example, we’ve changed how custom training notifications are handled. You can now attach different languages to the same custom training notification, and the correct language will be delivered to the person automatically based on their user language settings.
These features help scale global security awareness programs without managing everything by hand, language by language and campaign by campaign. The end result is a training experience that feels native and doesn’t leave learning up to language comprehension. Check out this guide for more information on AI translations and keep an eye on your console, the AI translation feature is rolling out to accounts today!
