Microsoft's approach to machine translation, like most modern machine translation systems, is ' data driven': rather than relying on writing explicit rules to translate natural language, algorithms are trained to understand and interpret translated parallel texts, allowing them to automatically learn how to translate new natural language text. This system was eventually used to translate the entire Microsoft Knowledge Base into Spanish, French, German, and Japanese. This system was based on semantic predicate-argument structures known as logical forms (LF) and was spun from the grammar correction feature developed for Microsoft Word.

The first version of Microsoft's machine translation system was developed between 19 within Microsoft Research. It also supports several speech translation systems that currently power the Microsoft Translator live conversation feature, Skype Translator, and Skype for Windows Desktop, and the Microsoft Translator Apps for iOS and Android. The service supports text translation between many languages and language varieties. Speech translation via Microsoft Speech services is offered based on time of the audio stream. Service for text translation via the Translator Text API ranges from a free tier supporting two million characters per month to paid tiers supporting billions of characters per month. Microsoft Translator also offers text and speech translation through cloud services for businesses.

Microsoft Translator is a part of Microsoft Cognitive Services and integrated across multiple consumer, developer, and enterprise products including Bing, Microsoft Office, SharePoint, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Lync, Yammer, Skype Translator, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Translator apps for Windows, Windows Phone, iPhone and Apple Watch, and Android phone and Android Wear. Microsoft Translator is a multilingual machine translation cloud service provided by Microsoft.

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