Enable a combination of language detection and machine translation for Virtual Agent to improve the chat experience for diverse users. You can designate fallback languages for locales or dynamically translate languages that are not professionally localized or are not supported in NLU topic discovery.

Chat users are more comfortable having conversations in their preferred language. For example, Virtual Agent greets users in the preferred language specified in their user profile. But if a user types an utterance in another language, Virtual Agent can detect the change and offer to continue the conversation in that language instead. But in many cases users don't have control over the session language, particularly if they are guest users. This is why language detection and dynamic machine translation can improve the chat experience, particularly if you have conversations that have not been localized in some languages. For example, your organization may routinely localize into Spanish and French, but you may also want to support Dutch and Danish. You can enable Dynamic Translation on your ServiceNow® instance for those languages.

You can use language detection to support custom or locale-specific language codes as well. For example, NLU topic discovery doesn't support Mexican Spanish (es-mx), but it does support Spanish (es). You can designate Spanish as the fallback language for Mexican Spanish, ensuring that these users have a good customer experience.

When a language is enabled in Dynamic Translation, Virtual Agent ignores all platform translations and uses the configured machine translation service instead. If some conversations have been professionally translated, you should disable dynamic translation for those specific languages. Expert translations of your NLU models, keywords, and topics may be more accurate and of higher quality than machine translations. For more information about localizing Virtual Agent conversations, see Localizing Virtual Agent conversations.

You can use Dynamic Translation during the localization process as well. If you are localizing conversations with professional linguists, you can enable Dynamic Translation while some topics and strings remain untranslated. When your deployment in that language is complete, you can disable Dynamic Translation, since professional translations are likely more accurate.

Video link Virtual Agent Academy: Dynamically translate languages in Virtual Agent Watch this video for a demonstration of using Virtual Agent with Dynamic Translation.

Note: You can use language detection independently of Dynamic Translation.

Language detection and Dynamic Translation process in Virtual Agent

When you enable language detection and Dynamic Translation for Virtual Agent for other languages, a variety of diverse users gain access to your Virtual Agent chat environment.

The default system language on your instance is the same as the default language in Virtual Agent. It is also the primary language in your NLU model, if NLU is enabled. When a user types an utterance that is not recognized as the system language, the results depend upon your configuration for that language.

Table 1. Language detection and Dynamic Translation process
Language configuration Results in Virtual Agent
Language detection and Dynamic Translation are not configured For unlocalized conversations, the default system language is used for topics and topic discovery.
Language detection is enabled, but not Dynamic Translation If the detected language is a locale or other language code that has been configured with a fallback language, Virtual Agent asks the user if they want to switch the conversation to the fallback language.

For example, if the detected language is Mexican Spanish (mx-es), and Spanish (es) has been designated as the fallback language, Virtual Agent asks: Would you like to switch the conversation to Spanish? (Yes/No)

If the user selects Yes, the fallback language is used for topic discovery and topic display. This continues until the conversation ends.

If the user selects No, Virtual Agent will not prompt them again during the conversation.
Language detection and Dynamic Translation are enabled If the detected language is enabled for dynamic translation in Virtual Agent Chat Settings, Virtual Agent asks the user if they want to switch the conversation to their preferred language.

For example: Would you like to switch the conversation to Danish? (Yes/No)

If the user selects Yes, the utterance is translated to the default language in Virtual Agent. This process uses the machine translation software that was configured in Dynamic Translation. Topic discovery, whether keyword or NLU, is done in the default language. All topic matches are translated dynamically into the user's conversation language and displayed. Virtual Agent will continue in that language, including expecting the user to continue typing their utterances in that language. Once the conversation is ended, Virtual Agent uses the default language in the next session.

If the user selects No, Virtual Agent will not prompt them again during the conversation.
Figure 1. Virtual Agent detects an utterance in a different language
Virtual Agent detects an utterance in Spanish and asks the user if they want to switch, in both English and Spanish.
The language detection and dynamic machine translation process operates according to the following principles:
  • Language detection occurs only once per conversation.

    If a user tries to change the language in the middle of a conversation, Virtual Agent returns an I didn't understand message.

  • When the conversation is closed, the primary language is restored in the next session.
  • If a user's detected language is the same as the primary language, the user is not asked to switch languages.
  • If a user's detected language has no fallback language specified and dynamic translation is not enabled for it, the conversation continues in the primary language.
  • If a user's detected language is not activated on the instance, the conversation continues in the primary language. For more information, see Activate a language.
Note: AI Search results are not translated.

Dynamic Translation and Agent Chat

If Dynamic Translation is enabled on Virtual Agent but turned off for Agent Chat, the live agent will see what the user sees. If the user started the conversation in another language and chose to switch when prompted, then the live agent will see the conversation in the user's chosen language. This may cause some confusion for both the agent and the customer. To resolve this issue, consider turning on Dynamic Translation for Agent Chat as well. For details, see Configure Dynamic Translation for Agent Chat.

Supported languages

For better results, install the ServiceNow language plugins for each language that uses dynamic translation. For a detailed list of language plugins, see Activate a language.

You can enable dynamic translation for languages that are not currently supported on the ServiceNow platform. For details, see Enable Dynamic Translation for an unsupported language.

Supported channels

Dynamic Translation for Virtual Agent is currently supported in the following channels:
  • ServiceNow web client
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Slack
  • Workplace from Facebook
  • Facebook Messenger
Note: The Virtual Agent topic test window may identify user utterances from Microsoft Teams or other adapters as sysparm_search_text. Dynamic Translation will translate this content as well.
The following channels do not support Dynamic Translation for Virtual Agent:
  • ServiceNow mobile client
  • WhatsApp
  • LINE
  • Twilio SMS
  • Alexa
  • Google Assistant
  • Siri