Open Access

The rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has profoundly transformed translation practices and poses new challenges for higher education. This article presents a multi-stage teaching project designed for MA students that critically explores the potentials and limitations of AI-based translation tools. Through the comparative analysis of literary and contemporary texts—most notably Franz Kafka’s short prose piece “Gib’s auf ”—students examine outputs from tools such as DeepL, Google Translate, ChatGPT, and Matecat. The project combines text analysis, comparison of machine translations, post-editing, and collaborative translation workshops, including direct interaction with a contemporary author. Results show that while AI tools provide efficient and often accurate support, they remain limited in conveying stylistic nuance, pragmatics, and cultural meaning. The study demonstrates that translation quality depends on human interpretation, creativity, and responsibility, highlighting AI as a didactic catalyst rather than a substitute for professional translational competence.

In this article, I present changes to the content of the Bachelor’s degree programme German Business Communication that I consider necessary in the light of AI-driven developments both in science and economic fields. I focus on developing critical thinking when students use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in their scientific work. This fits in well with the programme’s critical and engaged academic approach. The article sets out with an empirical consideration of AI in academic settings and GenAI application within the framework of the degree programme. Based upon this, a teaching/learning unit on GenAI use in a module of the programme is presented, which was designed and implemented in the winter semester 2025/26. The preliminary results reveal that further considerations are required to expand teaching units on AI tools for specific areas of business communication.

The genre “presentation” represents a central communicative act in academic settings, particularly in foreign-language and subject-specific language courses accompanying academic studies, where technical content must be appropriately adapted to the target audience in oral format. However, it is precisely in this context that a special focus is needed on the influence and potential of AI in the creation and implementation of presentations. The objective of this article is to discuss how AI-tools — such as those for text generation, visualization, or language analysis — can support the creation, delivery, and reflection of presentations, but also what negative effects they may have on the development of students’ presentation skills in specialized and foreign language university courses. An overview of relevant AI tools that can also be applied in later professional presentation practice and is intended to provide teachers and learners with a practical repertoire of digital aids. The findings provide impetus for the responsible and skill-oriented integration of AI into foreign language teaching.