Duolingo wants to move fast and break things when it comes to AI.
In a memo to employees shared on LinkedIn, Duolingo's CEO, Luis von Ahn, outlined his plan to make the company "AI-first."
"We can't wait until the technology is 100% perfect," von Ahn wrote in the memo posted on Monday. "We'd rather move with urgency and take occasional small hits on quality than move slowly and miss the moment."
Near the end of his memo, the CEO provided five bullet points about the "constructive constraints" Duolingo will be putting into place. He wrote:
- We'll gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle
- AI use will be part of what we look for in hiring
- AI use will be part of what we evaluate in performance reviews
- Headcount will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work
- Most functions will have specific initiatives to fundamentally change how they work
Replacing manual work with AI isn't a new move for the company. In early 2024, Duolingo laid off 10% of its contract workers because it began using AI to generate content. It made similar AI-related cuts in 2023. In the Monday memo, Von Ahn added that the AI push won't replace full-time employees with the technology.
"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 wrote.
Last year, to highlight its use of AI, Duolingo kicked off one of its earnings calls with a segment from Lily, an AI-driven chatbot based on a purple-haired character on the app.
"Over time, she's going to do more and more of my job, and I can just retire," the CEO said at the time.
Duolingo's stock has risen 68% in the last year, partially on the growth of its paid premium tiers. The company is also diversifying from language offerings by trialing chess and launching music courses. Duolingo is expected to report first-quarter earnings on Thursday.
Von Ahn is the latest tech executive making it clear that AI use is no longer optional.
Earlier this month, Uber's CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, said not enough of his employees know how to use AI and that Uber is implementing training programs to change that. He added that learning to use AI agents to code is "going to be an absolute necessity at Uber within a year."
In a memo to employees that Shopify's Tobias Lütke shared on social media earlier this month, he wrote that AI use is "now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify" and "teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI" before asking for more head count. Von Ahn's messaging on Monday closely resembled Lütke's post.
LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman touted Lütke's post and said that every leader, whether they are running a small startup or a giant company, should integrate AI into their work and conduct regular check-ins about AI learning.
Earlier this year, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he expects the company to have "AI that can effectively be a sort of midlevel engineer."
