Duolingo, via an all-hands email shared on LinkedIn by the CEO and co-founder, announced that it will be an AI-first firm. The firm said it will gradually stop relying on contract workers to handle tasks that AI can handle. The CEO announced that AI will be one of the factors they will look at when hiring new talents.
According to the all-hands email posted on Linkedin by CEO Luis von Ahn and co-founder, Duolingo will start using AI to do the work currently handled by contract workers. While announcing the AI-first approach, the CEO said that the company needed to rethink how it worked. Ahn added that AI will be one of the things they will consider when hiring. He also said that AI usage will be part of what the firm will evaluate in performance reviews. The CEO promised that headcount would only be allocated if the team involved cannot automate most of their work.
Duolingo adopts an AI-first strategy
🚀 Duolingo is going AI-first!
CEO Luis von Ahn just announced a major shift:
Just like betting on mobile in 2012 changed everything, Duolingo is now betting on AI.AI won’t just boost productivity — it will power teaching at the level of the best human tutors.
The future of… https://t.co/Fa5HFcxz1U pic.twitter.com/YZfzcp2FdQ— Diego | AI 🚀 – e/acc (@diegocabezas01) April 28, 2025
Ahn argued that making some minor changes to systems made for humans will not make the firm achieve its goals. He added that the company needed to make a few constructive constraints to achieve the AI-first approach.
According to the CEO, the firm will change how it works with contract workers and prioritize AI usage when hiring new employees. Ahn added that Duolingo will also consider AI usage when doing performance reviews. He pointed out that the firm will only give headcount when workers cannot automate most tasks.
Per Ahn, artificial intelligence wasn’t designed to boost productivity alone. It was created to get the company closer to its mission. He added that they wanted to create a lot of content to help them in teaching, but it was impossible as the current strategy does not scale massively. Instead, the CEO said Duolingo would adopt AI, arguing that it would take decades to create the required content without it.
Ahn said that they have been able to create new features for Video Calls that were not easy to develop before. He reminded everyone of the company’s 2012 move when they decided to create a mobile app, which eventually paid off. While stressing the firm’s decision, the CEO revealed that their early entry into the mobile-first realm in 2012 made them bag the 2013 iPhone App of the Year.
Duolingo joins other notable firms in embracing AI
Duolingo has become the latest tech company to shift its focus toward AI. Earlier this month, Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO, claimed that most of its employees were unaware of how to use AI. Khosrowshahi announced that Uber will introduce an AI training program for its employees.
Elsewhere, Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke shared that artificial intelligence was a fundamental expectation of its staff. Ltke said that teams at Shopify should show why they could not get work done by AI before requesting more headcount. At the beginning of the year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced that he expected the firm to have artificial intelligence that can effectively perform like a mid-level engineer. The Meta CEO discussed this development while appearing at the ‘The Joe Rogan Experience.’
Cryptopolitan Academy: Coming Soon - A New Way to Earn Passive Income with DeFi in 2025. Learn More
