Duolingo is adopting an “AI-first” method to its enterprise, and the language studying platform will scale back its reliance on human contract employees because it assigns AI their responsibilities.
In a memo to employees on Monday, Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn detailed the corporate’s official “AI-first” stance.
“AI is already altering how work will get accomplished,” Ahn wrote in an e-mail publicly shared via Duolingo’s LinkedIn account. “When there is a shift this huge, the worst factor you are able to do is wait.”
As a part of its AI-first technique, Duolingo will shift workloads from contractors to AI and “regularly cease utilizing contractors to do work that AI can deal with,” per the e-mail. The corporate will even reward AI use in hiring new workers and in efficiency evaluations of current workers. Groups will moreover solely be permitted to rent new members if the group can’t automate the work.
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Duolingo has eradicated contract employees in favor of AI earlier than. Final yr, the corporate cut 10% of its contractors after reportedly deciding to make use of AI for translations.
Nevertheless, Ahn reassured workers within the e-mail that “Duolingo will stay an organization that cares deeply about its workers,” and that being AI-first wasn’t about “changing” employees with AI however about permitting current workers to deal with inventive work and problem-solving over repetitive duties. The corporate stated that it could help workers with full-time workers coaching, mentorship, and AI instruments.
Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn. Photograph by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photographs
Ahn additionally defined why Duolingo was selecting to go all-in on AI now. He acknowledged within the e-mail that Duolingo wager huge on cellular in 2012, specializing in making a mobile-first app at a time when cellular apps have been primarily companions for full-fledged web sites. The transfer labored out effectively: Duolingo’s app received the 2013 iPhone App of the Year with 10 million downloads and grew organically after that. Now, Duolingo has over 500 million registered customers.
“This time the platform shift is AI,” he wrote within the e-mail.
Duolingo is specializing in AI by utilizing it to create content material and energy options like Video Call, which Duolingo launched in September. Video Name permits learners to follow talking of their goal language via a video chat with an AI character named Lily.
Duolingo is not the primary firm to lately announce an AI-first technique. Earlier this month, Shopify CEO Tobias Lutke instructed all workers in a memo that “utilizing AI successfully is now a basic expectation of everybody at Shopify.” Lutke instructed Shopify workers that they need to maximize what they may do with AI earlier than asking for extra sources or further human workers.
He additionally stated that Shopify would add AI use inquiries to its efficiency and peer evaluations.
Duolingo had a market capitalization of over $17 billion on the time of writing.
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