Your digital twin in other languages: what to check before you go live

In your voice. The recording you make in the studio, about seven minutes long and in your own language, is used for your face and for your voice. From it, the twin can speak other languages with your timbre, and you do not have to record again.

The content comes from the same place in every language: your Master Brain. Your materials, your stories and the rules in your Book of Criteria do not change because the client asks in English or in German. What changes is the language the twin explains them in.

By your ear. No language opens just because the technology allows it.

• 1. You request the language in your panel.
• 2. The platform prepares a sample: the notice that it is an AI, translated into that language and spoken in your voice. It is the exact sentence your twin will open every conversation with in that language.
• 3. You listen to it. If you recognise yourself and it sounds natural, you approve it.
• 4. From then on the language is open for your twin. Without your approval it stays closed.

The language you recorded in is open from the start, because it is the voice you already heard in the studio.

If the sample does not convince you, do not approve it. A closed language does you no harm. An open one, in a voice you do not recognise as yours, works against you every time your twin says hello.

It makes sense that the sample is the AI notice. Article 50 of the EU AI Act asks that the person knows, clearly and at the latest at the first interaction, that they are talking to an AI system. A notice that is badly translated or badly pronounced does not do that job, so it is the first thing worth hearing.

The voice is the easy part. What decides whether a language is worth serving is in this table.

The second row is the one most often forgotten. If nobody you trust can read what your twin has said in Japanese, you do not know what it has said. What your twin tells a prospective client is your business's communication, and the Spanish Unfair Competition Act treats false information about a service or its price as misleading, whatever language you say it in.

The ones you already have a reason to serve. Three common cases:

• You already receive enquiries in that language and today you answer them late or not at all.
• You have a partner, an associate or a long-standing client who speaks the language and can review the first conversations.
• Your service does not depend on a local law or market, and what you explain holds just as well in another country.

Opening ten languages on day one leaves you with ten places where your twin speaks and nobody on your team is listening. One new language you can review is worth more than five you cannot.

Less than it seems, and it is worth preparing. The twin explains in another language what is in your brain, which is written in yours. Three things help:

• A glossary of your terms. If your method has names of its own, decide whether they are translated or left as they are.
• Boundary rules that do not depend on the language. "If they ask for a price that is not listed, propose an appointment with me" works the same in any language.
• Materials without wordplay. A very local metaphor can get lost or sound odd.

In "How to write down your decision rules in plain language" we explain how to draft rules that are understood first time, which is also what travels best from one language to another.

The same as your clients at home, and in their own language. That they are talking to your digital twin, an AI with your face and your voice. That the twin answers from what you have taught it. And which language the relationship can continue in after the meeting: if the follow-up is going to be in English, say so before they book.

Review your booking page and the appointment confirmation as well. If the client books on a page in Spanish and is then served in English, the first impression is one of carelessness. Write those texts in the language you are going to serve in.

• Today: you record once, in your own language, and your twin can speak in your voice in more than 20 languages.
• Today: each new language opens only when you approve by ear a sample with the AI notice in that language. The language of your recording is open from the start.
• Today: the twin says it is an AI in its first turn, in the language of the conversation.
• In development: bringing the values and motivators from your personality assessment into the twin. Today it receives your style: the tone, pace and warmth you speak with.