Duolingo's big AI bet is primed to backfire in a big way

Summary

Language-learning company Duolingo is shifting to an AI-first business approach.
CEO Luis von Agn outlines this new strategy in a recent company-wide email, which has been published on LinkedIn.
Contract workers are being phased out as part of this transition, but Agn says “Duolingo will remain a company that cares deeply about its employees.”

Duolingo is going to be AI-first.

That’s the thesis of a new company-wide email penned by CEO Luis von Agn, which has been published on the web through Duolingo’s official LinkedIn profile. In what can only be described as a substantial shift in the company’s business strategy, the popular

language learning service
intends on streamlining operations and productivity metrics by leveraging all-things artificial intelligence.

“Al isn’t just a productivity boost. It helps us get closer to our mission. To teach well, we need to create a massive amount of content, and doing that manually doesn’t scale. One of the best decisions we made recently was replacing a slow, manual content creation process with one powered by Al. Without Al, it would take us decades to scale our content to more learners. We owe it to our learners to get them this content,” says Agn in his email.

Agn likens this AI-first platform shift to that of Duolingo’s successful pivot to mobile in 2012. The goal, it seems, is to get

AI
to understand the

Duolingo
codebase, with the CEO outlining several “constructive constraints to help guide this shift.” These include the gradual phasing out of contract workers in favor of AI, the use of AI in hiring practices, and the inclusion of AI usage as an employee performance evaluation metric.

Duolingo – Language Lessons

Duolingo is a popular mobile language learning application that offers over forty tongues to choose from, in addition to bite-sized math and music lessons.

Duolingo’s AI push might spell the end for contract workers

Duolingo

An oft-cited concern with artificial intelligence is that it has the potential to wreak havoc in terms of job displacement. Duolingo’s newfound AI-first mentality appears to corroborate this widespread unease — the company intends on replacing contract workers with AI, at least for tasks that are suitable for the latter to do without human input.

For his part, Agn says that Duolingo cares deeply about its workforce, and that an AI-first business approach will be a net positive for the company at large.

“…Duolingo will remain a company that cares deeply about its employees. This isn’t about replacing Duos with Al. It’s about removing bottlenecks so we can do more with the outstanding Duos we already have. We want you to focus on creative work and real problems, not repetitive tasks. We’re going to support you with more training, mentorship, and tooling for Al in your function,” says Agn.

Duolingo expanding to teach maths and brain training

Duolingo, one of the world’s most popular language-learning platforms, has set its sights on new horizons.

AI certainly has the potential to streamline workflows, and for a language learning platform like Duolingo, I can envision the tech being used to make rapid improvements to core app functionalities in an accelerated timeframe. That being said, there’s something to be said about the disconnect between the company’s kooky and bubbly social media Duo persona, and its cutthroat AI strategy.

…there’s something to be said about the disconnect between Duo’s kooky and bubbly social media persona, and its cut-throat AI strategy.

As a lovable green bird mascot, Duo has been the subject of much online virality and meme-ification in recent years. Duolingo’s X profile currently has over one million followers, and it publishes excentric and humanizing posts on a regular basis. In many ways, the company’s AI pivot flies in the face of this humanization, turning instead to a cold and calculated brave new world of algorithms and machine learning.

When Duo isn’t reporting live from a spa, he’s busy declaring his connection to love. Personally, I continue to love Duo’s gamified and mobile-first approach to language learning, and I look forward to the introduction of chess lessons in an upcoming software update. What I don’t love nearly as much, is the notion of AI overtaking human capital. Only time will tell how Duolingo’s AI gamble will play out, but it’ll certainly be interesting to look back on in the coming months and years.