Every LSP knows a good termbase is the cheapest quality control there is, and most termbases are thin, out of date or inconsistent across clients. Building one is slow: reading the client’s documentation, spotting the terms that matter, researching approved translations, writing definitions and usage notes. So it gets done at onboarding, partially, and decays as the client’s products and vocabulary move on.
That research is where AI helps. Term extraction tools have existed for years and produced long, noisy lists. Language models are much better at telling a domain term from a common phrase, and at finding how a term has already been translated in the client’s own memories and published material. The terminologist’s job shifts from finding candidates to judging them, which is the part that needs expertise.