Duolingo CEO Faces Backlash Over AI Implementation, Attempts Damage Control

Duolingo CEO Expresses Astonishment That People Were Mad When He Bragged About Replacing Workers With AI

Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn is having major regrets after widely bragging about replacing human workers with AI. Earlier this year, von Ahn boasted that the language learning app company would "gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle." At the time, the CEO said that "we can't wait until the technology is 100 percent perfect," enthusing that "we'd rather move with urgency and take occasional small hits on quality than move slowly and miss the moment." His enthusiasm for the tech was followed by a massive outpouring of criticism. Furious users on TikTok announced they'd be deleting the app en masse, their multi-year "streak" of daily use be damned. Bafflingly, the simmering anti-AI sentiment apparently caught von Ahn by surprise. "I did not expect the amount of blowback," he admitted in an new interview with the Financial Times, arguing that social media users had mischaracterized the changes as though "Duolingo has no employees, we have fired everyone and everything is being controlled by a massive AI." Of course, if AI were advanced enough to do that, his prior remarks suggest that he absolutely would. Tech companies have embraced AI tech at all costs, driven by massive hype surrounding the tech -- and consumers are quickly growing wary and frustrated. The race to replace human workers with tech hasn't sat well with many, establishing an entire anti-AI movement. Consumers have bristled at companies stuffing AI into virtually every aspect of their digital lives. To many, it's a race to the bottom, with AI automation undermining their livelihoods in exchange for dubious advancements in actual technical capabilities. But despite plenty of warning signs, von Ahn, a Silicon Valley mainstay whose net worth is just shy of $2 billion, says he didn't foresee the fallout. Last month, von Ahn went into damage control mode, telling Fortune that "I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do" and walking back his earlier promises of using AI instead of contractors. "I see it as a tool to accelerate what we do, at the same or better level of quality," he added at the time. "And the sooner we learn how to use it, and use it responsibly, the better off we will be in the long run." This week, he told the FT that there will be a "very small number of hourly contractors who are doing repetitive tasks that we no longer need." "Many of these people are probably going to be offered contractor jobs for other stuff," he added in an apparent attempt to extinguish the flames. According to von Ahn, AI isn't going anywhere, blowback or not -- an unsurprising stance given his immense vested interest. To the CEO, a "Black Mirror"-style dystopia where users get sucked into spending a "significant amount of time socially talking to AI" is "just inevitable," he told the FT.

Duolingo's CEO says workers need a 'mind shift' about AI

Duolingo (DUOL) CEO Luis von Ahn sparked backlash last month when he wrote in an all-hands company email that the popular language-learning app was going to be "AI-first." That email, when posted on LinkedIn (MSFT), drew hundreds of comments, many from users worried about what that meant for the company's employees -- and their 1,000-day streaks. Now, von Ahn has walked back some of his comments, telling The Financial Times that the move to being AI-first wasn't about mass layoffs but about rethinking how work gets done. "It's just a mind shift that people first try AI," he said. "It may be that AI doesn't actually solve the problem you're trying to solve . . . that's fine." Still, Duolingo, which has over 10 million paying subscribers, will be incorporating AI across the company, from content creation to internal tools. Von Ahn said that with AI, adding a language offering, which was once a labor-intensive process, could soon be done in a fraction of the time. "You no longer do the details and are more of a creative director," he told The Financial Times. "For the vast majority of jobs, this is what's going to happen." While a "very small number of hourly contractors" doing "repetitive" work were phased out (some were offered other roles), von Ahn has said the company isn't firing staff left and right. He clarified in a recent LinkedIn post that AI wouldn't replace employees and that Duolingo was "continuing to hire at the same speed as before." "I don't know exactly what's going to happen with AI, but I do know it's going to fundamentally change the way we work, and we have to get ahead of it," he wrote. "To be clear: I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do. ... I see it as a tool to accelerate what we do, at the same or better level of quality. And the sooner we learn how to use it, and use it responsibly, the better off we will be in the long run." Other companies are increasingly using AI to automate aspects of jobs, and von Ahn told The Financial Times that Duolingo was simply more transparent about its push to build AI into its workflow -- and underestimated how people would react. Duolingo's growth has remained strong: In the first fiscal quarter, revenue rose 38% year-over-year to $230 million and net income hit $35 million. The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company is also expanding into other learning areas, including music, math, and chess. But while the company's stock is up over 53% year-to-date, it has seen its shares fall a bit since von Ahn's original comments about AI -- and the resulting backlash from customers.

Why Duolingo's Founder is Doing Damage Control After AI Announcement

Von Ahn's big AI push seemed like a sensible, pragmatic move, at least on paper. But it generated extraordinary pushback from customers. Newspaper the Financial Times gathered together some comments: "Unbelievable," said one user on LinkedIn, "Cancelling my account NOW," "Well, there goes my 1,098 day streak," posted another. But it was more than this. The CEO's announcement triggered tough questions about the future of work, education, and the direction of the company brand. It also created a self-inflicted public relations crisis for the company, which successfully gamified language learning and developed a loyal customer base. Customers reported cancelling subscriptions in droves. The Times spoke to von Ahn, and he explained he feels many social media commentators actually misunderstood the "all-in" AI push to mean he was firing all his staff, and pivoting to a model where "everything is being controlled by a massive AI." This tapped in to public "anxiety" about the impact of AI on the workplace, potentially displacing real humans from their jobs -- a notion that's resulted in many worrisome headlines over the last year. Von Ahn said he really should've "been more clear to the external world" when explaining his AI push. He felt that one of his big slip-ups was being "open about it," even though "every tech company is doing similar things." Despite the negative public reaction, von Ahn says his own staff got what the plan was and "nobody misunderstood," because everyone knew Duolingo was "going to be a technology-forward company." The Times said the most questions staff had about the changes was about the idea their performance reviews were going to include checking on their AI use. Here Voh Ahn's intentions echo other pro-AI leaders, including drug maker Moderna's CEO Stéphane Bancel said last year he expected his staff to be consulting ChatGPT at least 20 times a day.