For most of its history, simultaneous interpretation lived in a soundproof booth at the back of a summit hall - expensive machinery reserved for diplomats and multinationals. KUDO took that machinery and put it inside a browser tab. Founded in 2017 by Fardad Zabetian, Ewandro Magalhaes, and Parham Akhavan, the New York company streams real-time interpretation and AI translation into online, in-person, and hybrid events so participants can speak and listen in their mother tongue.
The product does one thing with unusual focus: continuous, real-time speech translation. Speakers do not pause for an interpreter to catch up; listeners either hear translated audio or read live captions as the words flow. KUDO covers more than 200 spoken and sign languages, and plugs into the platforms people already use - Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Hopin, ON24 and more - rather than asking anyone to switch tools.
What sets KUDO apart is a deliberate refusal to pick a side in the human-versus-AI debate. Its network of roughly 12,000 vetted professional interpreters handles high-stakes, nuance-heavy sessions, while its patented AI Speech Translator serves faster, lower-stakes use cases such as webinars, town halls, and training. Customers choose the right tool for each event, and increasingly the two work together.
That blend has made KUDO a fixture in a market that grew sharply once the world went remote. It counts more than 400 clients globally - from enterprises like Microsoft and Burberry to intergovernmental bodies - and reports over 20 million minutes of multilingual meetings delivered on its platform.
