TPN & spf.io partner to live caption and translate CES 2025 keynotes into 8 languages for the press.
Introduction
TPN, a leading event production agency partnered with spf.io to help the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) make its keynotes at CES 2025 accessible to the press through live captions and translation. Held in Las Vegas from January 7 to 10, CES 2025 attracted more than 141,000 attendees.
With over 200 journalists covering the event, TPN and CTA seized the opportunity to offer live event translation, making the keynotes accessible in English, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, French, and Swedish. Leveraging spf.io’s AI translation services, TPN delivered a seamless multilingual experience that impressed journalists and sparked interest in translation services beyond the press pool.
About TPN
TPN specializes in producing large-scale corporate events. With expertise in content capture, media distribution, and live streaming, TPN consistently delivers high-quality services for major organizations like CTA. As CES’ exclusive event production partner for 28 years, TPN has watched CES grow as a world-renowned tech event. Their partnership with spf.io at CES 2025 marked a significant step forward in their mission to help CTA create a globally accessible and inclusive event.
The TPN team at CES 2024. (source)
The Challenge
The Accenture keynote at The Venetian (Photo by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)®).
This year, CTA aimed to provide translation for the Panasonic, X-Corp, Delta, Volvo, and Accenture keynote presentations. With audiences speaking various languages and some keynote speakers being non-native English speakers, they needed a solution to provide high-quality real-time captions and translation.
Due to budget constraints, CTA decided to offer live translation exclusively for the press. They wanted to ensure that every journalist could fully engage during the keynotes and report on them effectively. TPN searched for and evaluated several AI translation systems to present to CTA that could deliver high-quality results and meet the unique needs of a global event like CES.
Why TPN Chose spf.io
After working with spf.io to provide live captions at Databricks’ Data + AI Summit (DAIS) 2024, Matt Wilson, TPN’s Solution Analyst, praised spf.io’s unique “AI with a human touch” approach, which stood out compared to other solutions. Keeping a human in the loop to supervise the AI ensures the accuracy of the captions and translations.
Wilson also highlighted spf.io’s all-in-one solution as a key differentiator: “I saw things that spf.io was doing that nobody else was doing and it was all in one house.” With spf.io, TPN has all the tools it needs to deliver a successful, multilingual event within a single platform. Spf.io handles everything from in-room captioning to AI customization.
Furthermore, adaptability played a crucial role, as large-scale events like CES often face unexpected technical issues or last-minute schedule changes. Spf.io’s flexible system and its dedicated support team allow TPN to adjust swiftly and ensure a smooth experience from start to finish even under changing conditions.
How spf.io Delivered Live Translation for CES 2025
Spf.io worked closely with TPN during the event preparation phase, uploading speaker notes and adding speaker names and industry-specific terminology to the system to increase accuracy. Rehearsals and tech checks were conducted before each keynote to ensure everything ran smoothly.
CES provided smaller screens on both sides of the stage to display English captions. Each keynote had a QR code that journalists used to access captions and translations on their mobile devices. TPN also provided 200 dongles and headphones to distribute to members of the press.
English captions are shown on a screen on the side of the stage. (source)
Reading or listening to live translations on smartphones with spf.io.
(The Volvo keynote was captioned and translated into 7 languages)
There were unexpected challenges. When AI struggled to accurately capture Panasonic CEO’s speech due to his accent, spf.io deployed a human operator to review and edit the captions in real time. For the Accenture keynote, which was a fireside chat, spf.io likewise stepped in to enhance the captions and translation quality. This close collaboration demonstrated the value of spf.io’s adaptability to ensure quality for high-stakes keynotes.
The Results
Despite last-minute changes, all five keynotes ran successfully. Journalists could easily access captions and translations by scanning the QR codes provided in their info sheets. Anke Bieler, TPN’s Senior Event Project Manager, shared that the CTA team praised spf.io’s live event translation service. TPN’s on-site representative at CES, Sean, noted that the “user [interface] and functionality were straightforward.” While not all journalists used the service, those who did found it invaluable.
Interestingly, Wilson highlighted that individuals outside the press pool also inquired about accessing the live translation:
“One thing that’s kind of cool, I think, for the CES contact that was with Sean there at each of these [keynote] sessions is there were many people not in the press pool that were very interested in the translation service. And they were like, ‘Oh, I wish we could use this.’
So she got to see that there was an appetite for it that existed outside the press.”
This feedback underscores the significant need for multilingual accessibility at global events like CES. Building on this success, TPN is preparing to expand translation access beyond the press to all 100,000+ attendees in future CES events.
By integrating seamless live captions and translation, CES is not just improving engagement and content accessibility, but also positioning itself as a model for an inclusive global event.
Our CEO Ed Bastian is taking the stage to celebrate Delta’s Centennial year. We’re proud to be the first U.S. airline to reach 100 years in operation!
Tune into our live CES keynote for more updates: https://t.co/CHzNGPSzA8 pic.twitter.com/SfDBMWdJt4
— Delta (@Delta) January 8, 2025
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