From traditional publisher to AI publisher.
Biblica's Global Publishing team carries close to 130 years of combined traditional publishing experience. Instead of holding the line, they moved almost their entire resource-translation workflow onto Aquilla — and became the first team to take a Study Bible translation straight to a typeset, print-ready PDF.
Coming from a traditional publishing background.
Biblica's Publishing Team takes great pride in time-honoured processes and doing things well. Embracing AI meant a genuine mindset shift — and a willingness to move outside a comfort zone built over decades.
Many people see AI as potentially threatening their jobs. But this is misinformation. Embracing AI hasn't impacted our livelihoods negatively at all — it's put us in great demand and opened up all kinds of opportunities and possibilities for us.
130 years of experience — and no attachment to "we've always done it this way."
It would have been easy for a team this experienced to stay put. Instead, they pushed the boundaries and completely changed how they work.
It's been an amazing experience to move outside our comfort zone and not feel threatened.
Translation to typeset, print-ready PDF.
AI-assisted translation is already happening elsewhere — that's not new. The breakthrough is taking a translation straight through to a print-ready PDF. With the Frontier team, Biblica found a way to do that for a Study Bible: an output that's literally typeset, saving the hugest amount of time in the publishing pipeline.
I don't think anybody else has done this with a Study Bible. Being able to end up with a print-ready document — that's game-changing.
Stable, accurate, and reviewable in time.
Finding the right partner was critical: first a translation method that was stable, accurate, and allowed for in-time review — then a team that could help achieve the ultimate goal of print output.
In a situation where AI can be seen as impersonal, the Frontier team provide an incredibly personal experience.
From a 50% goal to nearly 100%.
The goal was to be functioning as a 50% AI publisher by the end of the financial year (30 September). Biblica will achieve almost 100% — and will move all resource translations onto Aquilla from October 1.
A full Bible update, translated in twelve months.
On June 1, Biblica took on two projects for the Innovation Lab: updating full Spanish and Portuguese Bibles from old source texts on Aquilla. Both were completed in twelve months.
Reference, not print
These texts aren't meant for print output — they'll be published online for reference purposes. A print run would have needed an additional period for further checks and balances.
Established languages, experienced reviewers
Spanish and Portuguese are established languages, and two experienced reviewers worked each language's AI translations.
Real-time review, real-time learning
Reviewers reported positive experiences and were happy with the first outputs. Doing the review and correction phase in real time — with the system learning as it went — was a real plus.
As organisations move into last-mile-first areas, you can't take up to ten years to translate a Bible. New ways are going to have to be found to speed up Bible translation if we are to meet Last-Mile-First goals.
Scale your translation, not your team.
Whether you're chasing a print-ready output or a faster path into last-mile languages, Aquilla gives one expert maximum leverage. It's free, and it's live today.