As AI continues to play a more important role in our everyday lives, concerns have arisen about the quality of AI-generated materials and job displacement.
While AI possesses the ability to generate a vast amount of content instantly, many critics are concerned about the transparency and credibility of AI-driven content.
In an attempt to continue to optimise its learning experiences, Duolingo has announced it has embraced an ‘AI-first’ strategy.
Not only will this strategy allow for highly personalised language learning, adapting lessons to each user’s performance and pace, but it will also enable faster and more cost-effective content creation.
Duolingo will utilise AI in both its hiring and performance review processes and will gradually replace contractors with work for AI.
The company has stressed the fact that they will ‘remain a company that cares deeply about its employees’ and will not use AI as a means to replace their employees.
The approach will help Duolingo scale with ease into new markets and languages. It can use AI to obtain deep insights into user behaviour, helping the platform continue to improve learning experiences.
In a LinkedIn post, Luis von Ahn, CEO of Duolingo, explained: “AI is already changing how work gets done. It’s not a question of if or when. It’s happening now. When there’s a shift this big, the worst thing you can do is wait.
“In 2012, we bet on mobile. While others were focused on mobile companion apps for websites, we decided to build mobile-first because we saw it was the future. [...]
“Betting on mobile made all the difference. We’re making a similar call now and this time the platform shift is AI.”
Luis continued: “Being AI-first means we will need to rethink much of how we work. Making minor tweaks to systems designed for humans won’t get us there. In many cases, we’ll need to start from scratch. We’re not going to rebuild everything overnight and some things - like getting AI to understand our codebase - will take time. However, we can’t wait until the technology is 100% perfect.”
Course creation
Following the announcement of an ‘AI-first’ strategy, Duolingo reported it had more than doubled its current offering by releasing 148 new language courses.
This launch is the biggest content expansion in the company’s history.
Luis explains: “Developing our first 100 courses took about 12 years, and now, in about a year, we’re able to create and launch nearly 150 new courses. This is a great example of how generative AI can directly benefit our learners.
“This launch reflects the incredible impact of our AI and automation investments, which have allowed us to scale at unprecedented speed and quality.”
Despite facing criticism over its use of AI, Duolingo continues to remain committed to its mission to ‘bring free language education to the world’.
Jessie Becker, Senior Director of Learning Design, Duolingo, explains: “It used to take a small team years to build a single new course from scratch.
“Now, by using generative AI to create and validate content, we’re able to focus our expertise where it’s most impactful, ensuring every course meets Duolingo’s rigorous quality standards.”
This announcement will widen learning opportunities across the world. It makes Duolingo’s seven most popular non-English languages available to the entirety of its 28 supported UI languages.
- Europe - speakers of 15 European languages can learn Korean, Japanese and Mandarin
- Latin America - Portuguese and Spanish speakers can now learn Mandarin, Japanese and Korean
- Asia - speakers of Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Thai, Tagalog, Indonesian, Bengali, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu can access all top seven languages
Google’s Little Language Lessons
Duolingo’s announcement mirrors a wider trend across the technology industry, where large companies are embracing AI to offer more personalised experiences in education.
Google has released an experimental language learning platform that highlights how Gen AI can be applied across the education industry — Little Language Lessons.
The platform calls upon Google’s Gemini AI models to offer situation-specific instruction that meets individual user environments and needs.
The collection of three prototype applications was crafted by a small team of Google engineers.
Aaron Wade, Creative Technologist at Google who worked on the project, explains: “Learning a new programming language typically begins by building something tangible, instantly putting theory into practice.
“Learning a new spoken language, on the other hand, often happens in a vacuum — through textbooks or exercises that feel strangely disconnected from the situations where language actually matters.”
Google and Duolingo demonstrate how AI can be used to scale educational content, personalise learning and support educators.
Both developments highlight the central role AI will play in education, supporting educators in delivering effective instruction and offering personalised learning experiences.
Duolingo’s AI journey
Duolingo has continuously shown its openness to AI.
In January 2024, it was reported that Duolingo had cut 10% of its contracted translators as it began to integrate Gen AI into its services.
Concerns around AI development arose when it was reported that human translation within Duolingo has been replaced by AI.
However, the company has initiated its AI journey before this. In March 2023, it partnered with ChatGPT creator, Open AI, to launch Duolingo Max.
Luis von Ahn said at the time: “AI accelerates our mission to make high quality education available to everyone in the world. The things that we can do now with the power of OpenAI’s technology are going to shape the future of education.”
“Most people don’t have access to a one-on-one human tutor, but I believe AI will allow us to eventually recreate the experience of a human tutor and scale it to everyone in the world.”
Duolingo’s ‘AI-first’ strategy is set to have a transformative impact on digital education by combining personalised, interactive learning experiences with scalable content creation.
Luis concludes: “I’m confident this will be a great step for Duolingo. It will help us better deliver on our mission - and for Duos, it means staying ahead of the curve in using this technology to get things done.”
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