Brian D’Agostino on Bridging Language Gaps With AI & Humans

How do you interpret millions of moments without missing a word?

In this conversation, Brian D’Agostino, Co-Founder & CPO at Boostlingo, explains how they’ve been redefining language interpretation. By integrating AI with a global network of interpreters, the company delivers fast, accurate, and dependable communication across sectors where every word matters.

As a co-founder and CPO, how has your perspective on building products—and Boostlingo as a whole—evolved since the early days?

In the early days, we were focused on vision, trying to predict where the industry was headed and building toward it. We moved fast, pivoted often, and learned through trial and error. That mindset helped us move quickly, but also meant we occasionally built things before we fully understood the problem.

Today, that’s changed. It’s no longer about prediction; it’s about partnership. Our approach is now rooted in customer obsession. We work directly with our users to validate ideas, pressure-test assumptions, and ensure that every decision we make directly solves a real-world challenge. From guessing to listening, that shift has made us better in every way.

The scale of what we do has also transformed our perspective. Early on, if something broke, it might frustrate a few early adopters. Now, we support thousands of users daily, across sectors where reliability, accuracy, and trust aren’t optional; they’re essential. Millions of interpretation minutes run through Boostlingo each month, and every one of those conversations could impact a life, a diagnosis, or a legal outcome. That responsibility carries real weight, which we feel every day.

As a product leader, that weight has shaped my thinking about tradeoffs. It’s not just about how fast we can ship but how responsibly we scale. Our job is to deliver with urgency, but never at the expense of trust.

Ultimately, the most significant shift has been this: We’ve moved from building for where we thought the industry was going to building with and for our customers, at scale. That evolution has changed how we build and who we are as a company.

What core capabilities truly set Boostlingo apart in the language access space, and why should customers choose you over others?

What truly sets Boostlingo apart is not just what we’ve built. It’s how deeply, reliably, and intelligently we’ve built it.

At the foundation is the Boostlingo Hub—a vetted global network of over 17,000 language professionals spanning more than 300 languages, including rare and indigenous ones. This is more than scale; it’s quality with breadth. Whether you need medical, legal, or specialized sign language interpretation, translation, localization, or voiceover, the Boostlingo Hub delivers. Our interpreters are held to rigorous standards: years of experience, specialized training, industry certifications, ongoing compliance and ethics audits.

Then there’s our Intelligent Routing Engine. This isn’t simply matching by language; it’s matching by context: the subject matter (medical, legal, etc.), interpreter performance history, availability, preferred characteristics like gender or specialization, whether the request is internal or should be handled via Hub, and more. We let customers configure these priorities so that routing aligns with both quality and compliance needs.

Because of this combination, with an exceptional network and precision routing, we deliver faster, more reliable language access than many alternatives. Internal interpreters are utilized more efficiently, fallback to the Hub is seamless when needed, and clients get the right interpreter for the right situation every time. This depth and reliability matter in sensitive sectors like healthcare or legal, where mistakes cost more than money.

Finally, this strengths-integration extends into our product design: pre-schedule capabilities for languages or encounter types that require more planning; quality assurance baked into every interpreter partner; integrations so language access fits where clients already work (EHRs, telehealth, IVR, etc.).

When you choose Boostlingo, you get more than a vendor; you get an all-in-one platform with unmatched network, configurability, compliance, and routing intelligence.

Boostlingo recently released its AI Interpreter beta. Tell us about the gap it addresses and the kind of feedback you’ve received from beta testers so far.

AI Interpreter is designed to solve the growing language access gap. The reality is simple: there will never be enough human interpreters to cover every interaction, such as appointment scheduling, check-ins, or front-desk conversations. These moments matter, but they don’t always require a live interpreter, especially when that person could be serving a more critical use case.

That’s where AI Interpreter steps in. It gives organizations instant access when a human isn’t available without compromising quality or control. It’s not about replacement; it’s about expanding access. As we say, AI when it fits, human when it counts.

Early beta feedback has been incredibly validating. Testers consistently mention three things:

• Speed: the ability to instantly connect without waiting.
• Accuracy: surprising levels of precision for everyday interactions.
• Safeguards: like automatic rollover to a human interpreter when needed.

They’ve also praised how naturally the AI Interpreter fits into existing call flows. It doesn’t require a behavior shift; it just works. We’re already incorporating testers' suggested UX improvements.

Perhaps most exciting is hearing, “what’s next?” Customers are asking for AI support across new modalities—over the phone, via video, and through integrations with their existing tools. That feedback is energizing because it aligns perfectly with what we’re already building.

At its core, AI Interpreter fills a critical access gap. From what we’re hearing so far, it does that without sacrificing the trust and usability our customers rely on.

How do you keep your product ahead of larger players with deeper resources who might replicate your features?

Staying ahead of bigger players isn’t about trying to do more of what they’re doing; it’s about doing what they can’t.

At Boostlingo, we don’t build generic tools. We create purpose-built solutions for regulated industries like healthcare, legal, and education, where accuracy, compliance, and security aren’t negotiable. That focus gives us a strategic advantage, especially when integrating into real-world workflows. It’s why we’ve won in the past, and why we’ll continue to lead.

We also move faster. Our platform connects us directly to both sides of the marketplace, language service providers and enterprise users, creating tight feedback loops and rapid product cycles. When something needs to evolve, we’re on it immediately. There’s no bureaucratic lag.

One of our biggest differentiators is our human-in-the-loop approach, which we internally call our moat. It’s not just a feature, it’s an operational philosophy. We blend AI with our extensive network of professional interpreters to deliver scalable, real-time access without sacrificing trust or nuance. That kind of depth and hybrid flexibility can’t be spun up overnight by a tech giant.

With millions of interpretation sessions flowing through our platform, we’re constantly learning. Our proprietary dataset trains and refines our models in ways generic AI systems can’t replicate. Every session strengthens the product.

In short, we’re not just building fast, we’re also building smart and in the places where it matters most.

What’s your approach to staying ahead of regulatory changes that could disrupt language services globally?

At Boostlingo, staying ahead of regulation isn’t a defensive move; it’s a proactive strategy. We closely track emerging legislation across regions, from the EU AI Act to evolving state-level mandates in the US. But we don’t stop at monitoring, we participate. Our team is active in groups like the SAFE AI in Interpreting Task Force because we believe it’s critical to help shape the policies that will impact our industry.

Compliance has always been the foundation of our platform. We meet the highest standards in healthcare today (HIPAA, SOC 2, and more), which gives us a strong footing as we expand globally. Our AI features are built on top of that same framework, with built-in safeguards like human oversight, clear disclosure, and instant interpreter fallback. That kind of flexibility lets us localize compliance by country or industry without sacrificing reliability or trust.

But we’re not just preparing for change, we’re helping lead it. We collaborate with advocacy organizations, contribute to resources like SAFE AI’s evaluation framework, and share best practices with professional associations. We aim to ensure language access regulations support equity, quality, and innovation, not just compliance for compliance’s sake.

In short, our approach is simple: Build with integrity, lead with transparency, and always stay one step ahead.

How do you prioritize between innovation (new features) and iteration (improving what exists)?

At Boostlingo, we don’t treat innovation and iteration as competing priorities. Our roadmap is always driven by one question: What will deliver the greatest outcome for our customers?

Iteration is how we reinforce the foundation. It’s about reliability, performance, interpreter experience, and user experience. Everything our customers depend on, day in and day out. We have entire teams dedicated to these core pillars. They aren’t just supporting players, they’re key stakeholders in every product initiative. We believe rock-solid systems are a prerequisite for innovation, not an afterthought.

On the other hand, innovation is how we move the industry forward. It’s informed by external signals, like customer feedback and advisory board insights, and internal creativity. We run internal hackathons and idea challenges because we believe great ideas can come from anyone, and often do. Some of our best features have emerged from team members who work directly with the product and see opportunities others might miss.

That culture of openness and creativity is part of what makes Boostlingo a great place to build. Innovation is encouraged, but it’s always grounded in purpose.

Product management is ultimately about balance: strengthening the tools customers rely on today while creating space for what’s next. It’s not easy, but it becomes a shared journey when you’re transparent with your customers about the tradeoffs and direction. That’s how we build trust and build better.

Finally, what’s your strategy to ensure Boostlingo leads the future of interpreting and translation rather than just reacting to it?

At Boostlingo, our strategy is rooted in a clear mission: to build innovative technology that removes language barriers and increases access to communication for all. But for us, this isn’t about chasing trends; it’s about shaping the future.

The future of language access lies in the balance between human expertise and AI efficiency. Our guiding philosophy says it best: AI when it fits. Human when it counts.

AI can help fill the language deserts—those gaps where no interpreter is available—while human interpreters remain essential for high-stakes, nuanced conversations. We’re not replacing interpreters. We’re augmenting their impact.

Our strategy is built on four key pillars:

• Quality-first AI, built for results: We harness the best LLMs, custom training, and real-world session data to deliver unmatched speed, accuracy, and language coverage.
• Built for control: Boostlingo AI is designed for our customers' environments with privacy, user permissions, and customization at the forefront.
• Interpreter-centric innovation: We develop with interpreters in mind, giving them tools to thrive as the profession evolves and not be sidelined.
• Interoperability as a foundation: Our platform connects interpreting, translation, scheduling, billing, and reporting in one place. That integration isn’t just a feature, it’s the future. Customers don’t want point solutions; they want ecosystems that fit into their workflows. Fragmented tools can’t meet today’s language access demands.

We also know that leading the future means looking ahead. That’s why we’re investing in emerging use cases, from telehealth and EHR integrations to wearables and intelligent call routing. We're actively testing how language access can extend beyond the platform into every corner of our customers' tech stack.

One of our most significant strategic advantages is data. Boostlingo processes millions of interpretation sessions across healthcare, legal, and education. This gives our AI models real-world context that generic models lack and makes our solutions smarter, faster, and more accurate where it matters most.

Beyond technology, we’re also helping shape the broader conversation. We engage with industry task forces, associations, and advocacy groups to ensure new standards are practical, inclusive, and future-ready. We’re not just reacting to where language access is going—we’re helping define it.

We’re building more than software. We’re building the infrastructure for tomorrow’s multilingual world.