Is Louis von Ahn’s job as CEO of Duolingo vulnerable to displacement caused by artificial intelligence?
“I’m not going to claim that CEOs are that special,” he says. “It’s just someone has to tell others. ‘This is where we go.’ And AI isn’t particularly good at it yet. ”
Judging from recent controversy over the Gameified Language-Learning app he co-founded, AI isn’t the only one who can misjudge communication. Last month, Von Ahn shared an email on LinkedIn that she sent to all staff members who announced that Duolingo was “AI-First.” “I wasn’t expecting a volume of blowback,” he admits.
“Incredible,” wrote a LinkedIn commenter. “Cancel my account now.” “Well, I have my 1,098 days of streak,” another posted.
The CEO says many social media users have mischaracterized the change as if “Duolingo has no employees, we fired everyone and everything is controlled by massive AI.”
He attributes this anger to the general “anxiety” about technology that will replace work. “I should have made the outside world more clear,” he recalls a video call from his office in Pittsburgh. “All tech companies do the same thing (but) we were open about it.”
He claims that the responses from staff and contractors have been much more measured. “No one misunderstood,” he says. Because when Duolingo began 14 years ago, he “knowed that this would become a technology company.” Staff raised most questions about the suggestion that performance reviews would include ratings for AI use. Details have not been resolved yet.
Since the rage, Von Ahn has reassured customers that AI will not replace the company’s workforce. “There will be a very small number of hourly contractors who are doing repetitive tasks that no longer require,” he says. “Many of these people will probably be offered contractor jobs for other things.”
Duolingo is still adopting it if they are satisfied that they can’t automate the role. Alumni, who make up half of the people they hire each year, use AI at universities, so “there is a different way of thinking.”
The thrust of the 46-year-old AI-first strategy is an overhaul of the work process. He personally outsources some tasks to AI, including Excel calculations. He said, “I want staff to explore whether it can be done entirely by AI or with the help of AI. It’s a change of mind that people can try AI first. AI may not actually solve the problem you are trying to solve.
The goal is to automate repetitive tasks to free up time for more creative or strategic work.
Examples that make a difference include technology and illustration. Engineers spend less time writing code. “Part of that will need to be done by them, but we want it to be mediated by AI,” says Von Ahn. In exchange for increased productivity, they are expected to spend 10% of their time learning. Similarly, designers will play more of a director role, while AI will help create artwork that matches Duolingo’s “very specific style.” “You’re no longer doing the details, you’re a creative director. This is what happens for most of your work.”
He argues that AI is primarily about speed. “Part of the reason why only 40 languages (teach) is that adding another language is a lot of work. Soon we can increase the number of many languages.” The technology is changing, “very fast… so many things are becoming possible on a daily basis.” This means putting up with imperfections in the short term and putting up with them in the hopes that they will be resolved. In the early days of Duolingo, the words were spurted using automated audio instead of actors. “It sounded a bit like a robot,” he explains. However, over time, the technology has improved.
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Last year, Duolingo introduced new features for premium (largest) subscribers, allowing users to talk to an avatar called Lily, a fictional moody teenager with “sakhy personality,” “signature salukasm,” and eye rolls. Over time, the relationships become more personalized as chatbots learn more about user preferences and abilities. Von Ahn is open to the future of such parasocial interactions, referring to his recent trip to China, saying, “I saw many people talking to AI friends.
“You can always think about these Black Mirror (dystopia science fiction series) episode type situations.
Other social implications for AI, such as the ethics of stealing copyrights of creators, are “real concerns.” “In many cases, we don’t even know how (large language models) were trained. We need to be careful.” Regarding artwork, Duolingo says, “We guarantee that the entire model is trained solely with our own illustrations.” The sentences are not excerpts from the author’s book, but rather “The Boy Runs,” so I’m not too worried about translations because the sentences are usually a common language.
Duolingo has grown rapidly since it was listed in the US four years ago. That first quarter result showed 10.3 million paying subscribers, up 40% the previous year, increasing revenue by 38% to $230 million, and net profit increased 30% to $35.1 million. Users fall into two camps. They are people who learn languages to get a job, move to another country, and do it as a hobby. The fun factor means he considers his major competitors Tiktok and Instagram, not other language apps. Duolingo expanded to offer chess, music and mathematics.
Growing up in Guatemala by his single mother, a pediatrician, Fon Anne speaks English and Spanish “completely well.” His French is enough to understand TV shows without “but my pronunciation sucks” subtitles. He is “a pretty good Portuguese” and is a beginner in Swedish language in Japanese, saying, “My wife is Swedish.”
Von Ahn moved to the United States to study mathematics, then completed his PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied cryptography. He started Recaptcha, a bot and spam screening business, and sold it to Google in 2009, allowing him to quit, as he later told Financial Times “I’d be bored.”
Perhaps his personal wealth contributed to the lack of urgency to make money with Duolingo? It took him about six years to tell staff that the company’s losses were unsustainable. “You’ll be surprised at how difficult it is. It took me about six months to convince this early group of employees that making money isn’t evil. If we’re a company, we need to do that.
The move to public was “great,” he says. The required rigor has improved processes such as financial forecasting. His mother, who now lives in one of his assets in Pittsburgh, said, “I don’t really understand what my company is doing (but) she somehow knows the stock price.”
Aside from the soft toy owl products made in China, Duolingo is not affected by US tariffs. “There are two options: raise prices or smaller owls. They’ll probably be smaller.” The Trump administration is taking part in a campaign to roll back employers’ initiatives on race and gender, but Von Anne says, “With users in every country in the world, a diverse workforce is essential. He says that the international employee is “a nervous because he knows who and what will happen.”
After we talk, Fong Anne returns to LinkedIn and apologizes for the previous lack of clarity. “I don’t know exactly what will happen with AI,” he writes. “But we know that it’s going to fundamentally change the way we work… AI creates uncertainty for all of us, and we can respond to this with fear and curiosity.”
A day in Louis von Anne’s life
I tend to wake up around 2am or 3am, not a great sleeper. I usually think about business and what’s going on in my life. I learned that the key to falling asleep is to stay in the bed. Then I wake up again around 5am and start the day.
Every morning, I check out the “Lewis Metric” dashboard to understand what’s going on around the world in our business.
I exercise every day, and that’s probably my most consistent habit outside of daily Duolingo lessons. Previously, I used to do intense aerobic exercise for just 16 minutes, but now I’m also doing weightlifting.
I’m in the office around 9am, but most days it’s a non-stop meeting. One of my favorites is “Product Reviews”, which reviews and approves all changes to the Duolingo app. I think it’s really important to be practical. I have two Duolingo accounts. One is a free user and the other as a paid subscriber. This can lead to both user experiences.
I quit my job every day for lunch and that’s an important part of our culture. We eat lunch in the office, but most of the time everyone stops working and eats together.
I’ll put my work together between 6pm and 7pm and try to go home for dinner with my wife.
