Duolingo Outlines AI-First Strategy, Plans to Replace Contract Workers With AI Tools

Duolingo, the ed-tech platform focused on teaching languages, mathematics, and music, is making a decisive pivot towards becoming an AI-first company. On Monday, the company published an all-hands email from its CEO, Luis von Ahn, which highlighted the company's vision for the near future. A major focus of this shift would be to phase out the company's contract workers with artificial intelligence (AI) tools, looking for AI skills in future hires, and making AI usage a part of the employees' evaluation process.

Duolingo Plans to Cut Contractor Jobs In Favour of AI

The company shared the email from the CEO in a post on LinkedIn. Addressed to the employees, the email stated that the company was planning a pivot to become AI-first, marking a move similar to the one taken in 2012. Just one year after its inception, the company decided to become mobile-first instead of website-first, noticing the rise of the technology.

Calling them “constructive constraints,” the CEO listed several new measures that will be taken as part of the company's AI-first vision. The shift will include Duolingo's reduction in using contract workers for work that can be managed by AI. Additionally, the company also plans to make AI skills a key hiring criterion and performance evaluations to include the usage of the technology.

Departments will not be allowed to hire more team members unless they cannot fuel additional workload via AI. To make the transition to AI seamless, the company also plans to add specific AI-based incentives for different functions.

Von Ahn highlighted that a fundamental restructuring of the organisation is necessary, as minor adjustments to existing workflows will not be sufficient. One of the main goals of the AI-first strategy is to use the technology to exponentially scale the content that is used to teach different languages and courses to the users of the platform. “Without AI, it would take us decades to scale our content to more learners. We owe it to our learners to get them this content ASAP,” he added.

Despite the risks, the CEO urged the company to act with urgency rather than waiting for the technology to be perfected. Highlighting some of the time-consuming processes of becoming AI-first, von Ahn said it will use AI teaching models to understand the codebase of the Duolingo platform. This will likely be done to ensure that the AI-generated content is in line with the platform's learning structure and quality.

Von Ahn said that despite the transition, existing employees will be provided with AI-focused training, mentorship, and tool use, the CEO claimed that the strategy is not about replacing employees with AI, and instead, it is about eliminating repetitive tasks so employees can focus on creative work and real-world problem solving.

Goldman Sachs (via BBC) claimed in 2023 that AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs. Separately, a McKinsey report in the same year claimed that 14 percent of the global workforce (roughly 375 million workers) could be forced to change their career because of AI.