Productivity AutomationReplaces Human LaborVerified
Reviewed and published by trentmaziarz, March 21, 2026. Discovered and drafted by our automated research pipeline.
In April 2025, Duolingo's CEO Luis von Ahn publicly declared the company "AI-first," meaning AI capability would be considered when hiring people, evaluating employee performance, and deciding whether to grow teams. The announcement triggered significant public backlash, including the loss of more than 400,000 social media followers, and the CEO later walked back some of the framing.
Details
The memo, posted to LinkedIn on April 28, 2025, outlined five guiding principles for Duolingo's AI-first transition: (1) gradually ending contractor arrangements for work AI can handle; (2) factoring AI use into hiring decisions; (3) including AI adoption in performance reviews; (4) requiring that automation options be exhausted before approving new headcount; and (5) rebuilding some internal systems from the ground up. Duolingo lost over 400,000 TikTok followers and wiped some social media accounts in the days following. In August 2025, CEO von Ahn stated the original memo lacked context, clarified that no full-time employees had been or would be laid off, and noted the company introduced "f-r-A-I-days" — weekly Friday sessions for employees to experiment with AI tools.
Products affected
All Duolingo operations
Sources & Evidence
News Article
Other practices by Duolingo
Customer SvcDuolingo uses an AI chatbot (powered by a company called Decagon) to handle the majority of customer support requests for the Duolingo English Test. The AI fully resolves about 80% of chat inquiries without any human involvement, answering questions about test registration, scores, and institutional acceptance.Data AnalysisDuolingo uses a machine learning model to decide, in real time, whether to show each individual user an advertisement, a subscription offer, or neither — predicting which choice is most likely to generate revenue from that specific person at that moment. The system was credited with generating tens of millions of dollars in additional annual revenue.Data AnalysisDuolingo uses a machine learning algorithm to decide which push notification to send each user, at what time, and how often — optimizing for the messages most likely to get a lapsed learner back into the app. The system was published as research in 2020 and was shown to increase the number of daily active users by 0.5% and improve retention of new users by 2%.
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