Supporting the AI Safety Summit

In November 2023, the UK held the first global government-led Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit. The summit was the start of the critical global conversation on AI to manage the opportunities and risks presented by rapidly advancing AI technology.

With 30 countries in attendance, translation and interpretation was crucial to the summit’s success. Our team provided all interpreters across the two-day event, in a total of six languages – Japanese, Italian, Korean, German, Portuguese and Chinese.

The interpreters attended all the main plenaries, and various breakout sessions and bilateral meetings between country representatives. Based in interpreting booths and working in teams of three, they provided non-stop interpreting for main meetings and solo consecutive interpreting for individuals.

Interpreting at short notice

Organised in a few months, the team had to mobilise quickly at short notice to ensure that world leaders, such as United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, could communicate with other attendees at the summit.

As a two-day summit, the event programme was particularly demanding for our teams, with a large number of sessions and a high number of languages required. This combined with the short notice of the event, created a challenge for our team to manage all the event logistics including briefings, management of the interpretation service and the relationship with the customer.

Despite these challenges, our team supported the event and ensured critical conversations on AI, its risks and opportunities could take place. This contributed to and ensured that the world’s first government-led AI Safety Summit was a success.

“I was the liaison for the large interpretation team for the AI Safety Summit. It was an intensive two day programme and the team did a terrific job, especially as they often found themselves without subject briefing notes or advance texts. They also responded to changes in the programme or last-minute requests for in-person support. They all played a very important part in making the Summit a success.” - Joint Head, Events and Visits, Protocol Events and Visits Unit