Prodifi, the subsidiary of RIDI, has announced a service termination next month due to “internal service strategy adjustments.”
The notice appeared on the Prodifi website where it states the site will be discontinued as of December 31. By then, all data on the platform will be deleted, the customer support service will be closed, and the website completely shut down. There is no explanation as to what the internal service strategy adjustments were to lead to the discontinuation.
The platform, which launched an AI-powered webtoon localization tool a few months ago, recently came under fire for its use AI tools to support translation in webtoons and webnovels. As per Anime News Network, Prodifi could “reduce the time and cost of localization by up to 90%.”
According to Prodifi’s website, it can automatically recognize and translate text in images to its English, Japanese, and Spanish, and is compatible with a large variety of image formats such as PSD, JPEG, and PNG. Prodifi uses AI to speed up translation while supposedly takes into account cultural nuances and sensitivities.
Platforms such as Lezhin and Manta had been listed as clients who use Prodifi, resulting in many users to delete their subscription to protest the use of using machine translations rather than human translators. Users have reached out to both Lezhin and Manta for explanation with Lezhin stating that they have not used any AI translation services for their webcomics.
“We confirmed that [Prodifi] was used for AI translation testing purposes and has never been used to translate comics we provide. Also, please note that we are no longer using [Prodifi] as our testing has been completed.”
Although Manta’s support team wrote that titles localized by Manta will be worked on by “professional human translators and editors, who oversee the entire process from start to finish,” they have also admitted that Prodifi is being used as a “tool.”
“Prodifi is used by our translators and editors as a tool – to assit them in their workflow, not to replace them. While this tool helps improve the efficiency of the work, human expertise remains at the center of our approach. We want to emphasize that no translation is ever published without a thorough process of human review, editing, and refinement, in line with our commitment to delivering authentic and high-quality stories.”
This client list disappeared a few weeks ago.
Prodifi will cease service in December 2025.
Source: Prodifi
