#107 Automating Language Evaluation With Emmersion CEO Brigham Tomco

Brigham Tomco, CEO of Emmersion, joins SlatorPod to talk all about automating language evaluation and the underlying tech behind it.Brigham begins with his journey into the language education and tech industry, where he started two venture-backed companies. He recounts the early days of Emmersion, where they offered language tutoring and how they evolved into building language assessment tech.The CEO shares the importance of language learning in the age of AI with language tech like machine translation and speech-to-speech. He identifies the different key client segments, from call centers and BPOs to academia and LSPs.Brigham unpacks the language tech and patenting process behind language testing products, such as TrueNorth Speaking Test and WebCAPE. He outlines how they handled the rapid demand for remote hiring as a result of Covid and Emmersion’s roadmap for the future.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with Simon Lee, CEO of language data platform Flitto, sharing how the company has integrated the metaverse into their everyday work.The duo talk about the state of the data-for-AI market as Appen’s share price fell by 28% after releasing full-year 2021 results. Meanwhile, in Australia, captioning and translation provider Ai-Media grew 29% to AUD 29.6m in the first half of 2022.Esther then gives an update on the Language Industry Job Index, which climbed three points to 176.6 in March 2022.