It appears not all is good in the world of Duo as reports of Duolingo layoffs reach our desks today. According to CNN, Duolingo laid off approximately 10 percent of its contract workers recently. The news seems harder to swallow considering that the layoffs have occurred majorly as a result of AI-related job cuts. Duolingo, the language learning app, works with multiple contractors to facilitate the language services it provides to users but with the advent of generative AI the company no longer requires such a large workforce to support its operation. The company has been driving its AI endeavors forward recently, with its Duolingo Max subscription added into the mix.
Image from the Duolingo YouTube channel “Life at Duolingo: An Office Tour!”
Duolingo Layoffs Indicate a Possible Trend of AI-related Job Cuts
It is often difficult to fully conceptualize the impact AI can have on our society and workforce as a whole, but we seem to be on the receiving end of frequent glimpses into the possibilities. According to the reports, the company had to let go of 10 percent of its contract workers to accommodate AI-based changes in its content generation. No full-time workers were a part of the numbers and the company stated that they did attempt to find other roles for the laid-off workers before having to resort to this, more drastic, strategy.
Instead of having workers at every step of the content-generation process, the company appears to be prioritizing their workforce efforts for the end review process only. With AI doing the majority of the work in generating the material that will be used in their language courses, all that will remain is verifying the quality of the completed work. While it makes sense from a business standpoint, it does impact workers negatively. “AI is a tool we are using to increase productivity and efficiency, to add new content, and improve our courses faster so that we can continue to teach to higher levels of proficiency,” the company told CNN.
Towards the end of 2023, we saw reports that Google was considering a similar move, debating firing a 30000-strong ad sales team that was no longer required to do a job that was better performed by the Google Ads tool Google Performance Max. AI job cuts appear to result from many job roles becoming redundant, simply because AI can do it quicker, if not better. In the case of the Duolingo language learning app, the content generated doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect if experts can be hired to sift through the work and ensure it is ready for the public eye.
Life at Duolingo: An Office Tour!
According to TechCrunch, news of the Duolingo layoffs first came to light when a Reddit poster reported their own experience with their company contract coming to an end. The Reddit user explained that they were informed that AI could generate the content and alternate translations more easily, requiring only a handful of content curators to check the work instead. Speaking to TechCrunch, Duolingo stated the 10 percent number that was being reported was only partially made up of workers whose job cuts were AI-related. As per the article, many of the workers who had their contracts terminated had just come to the end of their terms with the company, but there is no evidence available to confirm these details.
A Language Learning App Duolingo Promotes AI-Based Max Subscription
In May last year, Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn spoke to CNBC about how the Duolingo AI collaboration was boosting the kind of work done at the company, promoting the integration of artificial intelligence into their services. Describing how the company was not intimidated by the growth of alternative AI tech that the company provides itself. Stating that a majority of its users who either want to learn a language for work or as a hobby are unlikely to use a translator tool to do the work for them.
Discussing the future of Duolingo AI, CEO Luis von Ahn described the potential for constant one-on-one learning when presented with an AI tool that could help you practice the skills you pick up. The Duolingo Max subscription unlocks the benefits of Super Duolingo, which assists users by explaining their answers and pointing out mistakes. In addition, the roleplay feature allows real-time practice of conversations with the tool as well. With the Duolingo AI able to serve so many benefits, investments in them by the Duolingo language learning app are inevitable.
“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.”
—Luis von Ahn, CEO and Co-founder of Duolingo
Many users appear particularly disappointed with Duolingo as a company since the news of the layoffs broke, sharing their disappointment on X/Twitter. Many appear to be quitting the app and ending their association with the organization due to the AI-related job cuts so we might see the Duolingo Max subscriptions drop as well. It is still unclear if this shift is just temporary but it is evident that the audience for these forms of subscription services do not support AI initiatives the way companies might hope.
As per Statista, paid subscribers of Duolingo Inc. increased by 11 percent at the end of the third quarter in 2023, with 5.8 million registered users. At the end of 2022, the numbers stood at 4.2 million worldwide so it’s quite evident that one way or another, the AI subscription services have sped things up at the company. Additional Duolingo layoffs might become more likely as the Duolingo AI unless the company can find a reason to retain the segment of the workforce creating their content. Similar AI job cuts in other industries might also occur as a result with 44 percent of respondents of ResumeBuilder agreeing that AI efficiency will result in innumerable 2024 layoffs.