Duolingo announced Wednesday that it had beaten quarterly revenue estimates despite the company’s faced widespread rebound over its choice to accept generate AI over human workers. Duolingo shares rose almost 30% on the news.
In April, CEO Luis von Ahn shared that Duolingo would become an “AI-First” company, abolishing the use of contract workers. He also discouraged the team from hiring more employees unless they can automate more work. With the use of generator AI, Duolingo has introduced 148 new language courses. This has more than doubled the previous product.
“Without AI, it would take decades to expand content to more learners,” wrote Von Ahn at the time. “We owe our learners to get this content as quickly as possible.”
Some Duolingo users argue that these AI features are making the app worse, but the company’s financial metrics tell a different story. Currently, the company expects to generate more than $1 billion in revenue this year, with daily active users rising 40% year-on-year. Growth is important, but it is in the low range of estimates for the company with a 40% to 45% growth that investors grew to Von Ahn in Wednesday’s quarterly revenue call.
“The reason we came towards the bottom is because I said a few things about AI, and I didn’t give it enough context, so I got a social media backlash,” Von Ahn said. “The most important thing is to be positive about social media emotions. I stopped posting edgy posts and started posting things that made my emotions more positive. That worked.”
On Tiktok, top comments about Duolingo’s videos often remain criticism of the company’s AI approach. Snarky commenter asks if a video with multiple people is made with AI.
But even if the public’s feelings about Duolingo change, the final line is… and from a company’s perspective, that’s what matters.
