Foreign language teaching app Duolingo prioritizes AI, replacing all contract employees

Self-study foreign language application with blue owl icon Duolingo - Photo: PCMAG

Recently, the self-learning foreign language application Duolingo announced its “AI-First” plan, which means prioritizing AI technology, placing AI at the center of the company's operations and development activities, and ultimately terminating contracts with all seasonal employees.

“AI has changed the way we get work done,” Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn wrote in a note to employees.

He also highlighted how AI can benefit the company, comparing the current AI wave to the mobile app boom in 2012.

“To teach effectively, we need to produce large amounts of lesson content, and manually creating lesson content is no longer effective.

“One of the best decisions we made recently was to replace that process with an AI-powered system,” CEO von Ahn wrote.

A year earlier, Duolingo had cut contracts with nearly 10% of its partners after adopting AI technology for translation tasks. The company aims to completely eliminate its dependence on external partners and fully transition to AI technology in the future.

In addition to learning content, Duolingo will also apply AI to its recruitment and performance evaluation processes.

However, the company admits it is still considering carefully because this technology is still quite young.

“AI-First means we still need to rethink how we work. We can’t wait until the technology is 100% perfect. It’s better to act quickly and occasionally suffer some small quality impacts than to act slowly and miss the opportunity,” said von Ahn.

Since its launch in 2012, the self-learning foreign language application with the blue owl icon has attracted hundreds of millions of users. According to statistics, in the fourth quarter of 2024, Duolingo had about 116.7 million monthly active users (MAU).

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UYEN PHUONG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/duolingo-uu-tien-tri-tue-nhan-tao-thay-the-toan-bo-nhan-vien-hop-dong-20250430105549404.htm