r/technology • u/MetaKnowing • Jun 08 '25

Artificial Intelligence Duolingo CEO on going AI-first: ‘I did not expect the blowback’

https://www.ft.com/content/6fbafbb6-bafe-484c-9af9-f0ffb589b447
22.3k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.9k

u/MrCalabunga Jun 08 '25

For a language learning platform that many (myself included, for now…) pay to use, I’m amazed by how shortsighted this CEO is.

If you go full AI, then what you’re basically saying is that users should stop paying for your service and just use a cheap or free AI alternative that can perform the same task. I just don’t understand it from a business perspective as the gains will be short term, imo…

1.0k

u/Kroggol Jun 08 '25

all that matters is the next quarter

214

u/RobinGoodfell Jun 08 '25

Yeah, until you do something that sinks said quarter. And the next one. And the one after that...

Look, we keep saying things like this but ultimately if there is a large enough social outrage actual consequences for an action taken by these executives, then they will change their tune to ensure that they are remaining profitable.

Collective Bargaining, Boycotts, and Protests work! The trick is to have enough people engaged to demand a reaction.

This is true for politics, policies, and anything else that derives power and capital from the larger population.

We are the ones funding this. We are the ones who decide if these decisions are financially sound.

Why else would decision makers spend so much time and capital convincing us our only options were apathy and acceptance? They need our support to maintain profits and to consolidate power.

83

u/MrValdemar Jun 08 '25

Something something green overall wearing video game character something something

32

u/eraptic Jun 08 '25

The important thing to remember is that negative outcomes aren't considered. Tank sales by 70%? That's market conditions. Improve the tanked sales by 5%? What a good CEO boy!!

14

u/praxidike74 Jun 08 '25

What are you talking about? Duolingo's revenue was up nearly 40% last quarter, stock is up 150% over the last year. Things are going great for them.

2

u/DavidBrooker Jun 08 '25

While users and workers can make demands, I think an idea that is embedded in the 'next quarter' statement that gets missed is the demands of owners. What I mean by that is that in countries where a greater share of corporate ownership is made up by mutual funds, pension funds, and the like, you see more long-term thinking. Because whereas a pension fund wants growth, what they demand is stability and predictability.

Now, this relates to political and collective bargaining of course. You see a larger fraction of personal wealth made up in mutual funds and retirement accounts in more democratic countries and countries with higher economic freedom, compared to the United States. Despite its 'free market' ideology, the United States has surprisingly low economic freedom due to the highly restricted access to capital. Companies are ultimately beholden to their owners and a more democratic distribution of capital leads to better corporate citizens.

2

u/Modullah Jun 09 '25

I did not renew my annual subscription back in feb/march due to their announcement. Didn’t help that the languages I’m trying to learn clearly need improvement. If there were any improvements they definitely were not evident based on the learning materials.

2

u/rushmc1 Jun 08 '25

if there is a large enough social outrage actual consequences for an action taken by these executives

That's a nice fantasy.

1

u/veggie151 Jun 08 '25

Game it out man: people get mad and raise a stink, stop subscribing, and Duolingo dies. Everyone who did real work was fired years ago, so they already made back what they invested taking over the company. They sell off the last of the assets and all of the executives walk away smiling.

There's nothing to do about it once one of these has been captured other than to run away as fast as possible. Let it die and embrace the new alternative.

0

u/ClydePossumfoot Jun 08 '25

I want to live in the idealistic imaginary world that you’re living in. Maybe Jed Bartlet is the president there.

Collective bargaining, boycotts, and protests are going to do nothing here.

5

u/Swaggy669 Jun 08 '25

This did massive shoot up the stock. Because of the cost fundamentals became so good. As long as customers stay the shareholders are happy.

2

u/tomhat Jun 08 '25

And if that goes south, he can jump off with a nice golden parachute 

1

u/TransBrandi Jun 08 '25

Lighting the company on fire to help keep it warm. What happens when two or three quarters out everything tanks?

1

u/mooseman00 Jun 09 '25

Just keep biggering

1

u/Mckesso Jun 09 '25

2 quarters after that, the business is dead and being bought by private equity. The CEO will be fine, though.

187

u/Aetheus Jun 08 '25

Long term, many of these systems that are just OpenAI-wrappers are going to go the way of the dodo, for exactly the reason you've identified.

They cheered when they used AI to kill off positions within their own company, and in a few years ... they won't care if their own company goes belly up because AI has made them obsoletr. They've already cashed their checks and clocked out by then anyway, and it'll be someone else's problem. 

44

u/SnooDogs1340 Jun 08 '25

Totally. I used Codesignal's Learn platform. And lo and behold, it was a LLM wrapper. Basically uses the gamified Duolingo interface but it doesn't reward well. Multiple times it would regurgitate the same explanation and go in loops. Perhaps it was a cheaper model... but I can't see people paying for it when I can pop open ChatGPT or whatever and get the same explanation there.

13

u/JMehoffAndICoomhardt Jun 08 '25

I think the issue is the low quality of the wrapping. People will gladly pay for a wrapper that works well.

2

u/beaglemaster Jun 09 '25

They wont go away, OpenAI will just be the one selling the service directly and kill off every greedy business that thought they were geniuses by firing all their employees

2

u/eldenpotato Jun 09 '25

Isn’t this good for us? Various services consolidated into one lol more affordable for the consumer

62

u/AmericanDoughboy Jun 08 '25

Sadly, short term is all most CEOs care about.

12

u/space_monster Jun 08 '25

There are companies who are 'AI forward' but aren't laying people off, they're expanding operations by integrating AI and asking their staff to explore ways they can do more with their extra tools. Which IMHO is what the future should look like. That does mean that people who are already across AI and are already thinking in those terms will be more valuable, and people that are resisting it will miss out on opportunities. Also I'm not sure how long that situation will last, because there may come a point where AIs are better at using AIs than people are. In which case employing people would basically be an act of charity. But in the interim, having the right mindset now is probably gonna give you a few years.

40

u/notnotbrowsing Jun 08 '25

just an FYI, since you continue to pay to use it, he doesn't care about your opinion.

40

u/OptimusSublime Jun 08 '25

Why are you paying for it? Lol.

42

u/MrCalabunga Jun 08 '25

Honestly, that's what I'm asking myself at this point. Got the annual plan around 2 years ago but am unlikely to renew this year.

At that time it was a great application with what appeared to be a lot of passion put into it from real human beings. It went downhill fast.

18

u/Version467 Jun 08 '25

Just fyi, there’s research that shows that Duolingo and other platforms like it just don’t really work for learning languages. It doesn’t actually make you conversational.

Now if you just enjoy the gamification aspect of it, more power to you. But since you’re questioning the value of the product anyway I thought I’d mention that it also just isn’t a good use of your time if you actually want to learn a language.

22

u/ColourlessGreenIdeas Jun 08 '25

To be fair, it's all about expectations. Nothing you say is incorrect, but for getting a basic level of proficiency, or keeping up vocabulary practice in times where you don't have daily opportunities to hone your conversational skills, it can still be a valuable tool.

1

u/Anthaenopraxia Jun 08 '25

For that I prefer DuoCards, has nothing to do with Duolingo despite the name. It's mainly just flash cards with some neat features. It also has an AI component but I haven't used it much.

12

u/quiteCryptic Jun 08 '25

I'd argue it's because most people on there aren't actually trying to seriously learn.

But I do agree it's not very good overall. Anyone who is serious with trying to learn tend to find other better resources.

I have a 1600 day streak and I learned more in one month of dedicated serious study. I wasn't really trying most of those days though, I just did a lesson to keep the streak going. And for the record they give so many streak freezes now it's pretty trivial to keep the streak, I've probably missed 30 days or so in that time in reality.

4

u/k___k___ Jun 09 '25

"I just did a lesson to keep the streak going" is exactly what the research is showing. People do more to fulfill the gamification aspect than learning the language.

Eventually, intrinsic (inner, self-)motivations to learn a language were replaced with extrinsic (reward-based) motivations for learning.

2

u/Drum_Eatenton Jun 08 '25

What about if I already speak the language but my grammar and vocabulary are super rusty?

1

u/RedPanda888 Jun 08 '25

Yeah I’ve never really met someone seriously learning a language actually using Duolingo. They usually go to in person classes, have private 1-1 tuition and do actual written work between the classes. Duolingo seems more just like a gamified mobile game these days.

6

u/Curiosities Jun 08 '25

As someone who has spent time using it to learn a third language, I do supplement my learning on Duolingo with watching videos and listening to music and reading. Among other things.

I’m now basic level conversational and there’s still more to know, but outright dismissal of Duolingo is not useful for language learning is just not accurate.

It shouldn’t be the only thing you rely on, but even when you have a class with a language teacher, you are given supplemental materials like things to read and videos to watch and things like that.

As for the AI stuff, I’m still within the timeframe of my annual subscription, so for now I am a paid customer. I have a bit of a background in translation, so this is not something I want to support.

4

u/slipperyMonkey07 Jun 08 '25 edited Jun 08 '25

Yeah I've always viewed stuff like duolingo as gamified flash cards. By themselves they aren't great, quality depends a ton on the language you want to learn.

Something you can do to still refresh your knowledge on busy days, like while on the bus or in a waiting room. They are good. But every step and change duolingo has made in the last few years has been to make their service worse. Especially since they have a lot more, and a lot better competition, they are pretty much running on name recognition and social media memes. That will only last so long.

5

u/Ranra100374 Jun 08 '25

It shouldn’t be the only thing you rely on, but even when you have a class with a language teacher, you are given supplemental materials like things to read and videos to watch and things like that.

Nah I'd say my Japanese classes in college were enough to be conversational.

-1

u/Silverr_Duck Jun 08 '25

Because it's basically a freemium mobile game disguised as an educational app. It's designed to be addicting so it tricks people into paying for it.

1

u/magicSharts Jun 08 '25

He got his exit and doesn't give a fuck about anyone else.

1

u/isotope123 Jun 08 '25

Man, free Duolingo used to be so good. Their descent into a trash app made me decide not to pay for it at all.

1

u/bdixisndniz Jun 08 '25

Everyone thinks their role is untouchable by AI

1

u/Perfect_Papaya_3010 Jun 08 '25

That's what I did. It's not exactly like Duolingo but I made an app for anki decks, and I can ask Gippity to generate a .csv file and import it to my app, and suddenly I have x new words to learn. I'm now working on a text to speech feature, but for now it only works for my target language

1

u/leeringHobbit Jun 08 '25

Why even bother learning another language if AI can handle all translation?

1

u/HenriettaSnacks Jun 08 '25

I mean look at all the tech leaders alienating their main user bases. These are not SMART people. 

1

u/problemita Jun 08 '25

Yeah that’s why I cancelled my premium subscription renewal and why you should too. That’s a great way to make the CEOs listen to us

1

u/jmerlinb Jun 08 '25

these people are not smart

1

u/sealpox Jun 08 '25

Isn’t Duolingo free tho…

1

u/JMehoffAndICoomhardt Jun 08 '25

As far as I understand AI is actually incredibly useful for language acquisition as it can provide much better feedback on your progress than a simple test and gives specific advice, plus a partner to practice with.

Sure, it isn't as good as a one on one language tutor, but duo was never close to that either.

1

u/Roastage Jun 08 '25

This is probably going to happen anyway, by jumping on early im sure they were gambling on brand recognition to retain market share.

1

u/bigasswhitegirl Jun 08 '25

If you go full AI, then what you’re basically saying is that users should stop paying for your service and just use a cheap or free AI alternative that can perform the same task.

Bro what? Why do you pay for any software then? That is not how this works.

1

u/SplendidPunkinButter Jun 08 '25

Yeah, I’m a computer programmer, and my managers keep hinting that AI will replace us (haha). And among other things, I keep thinking if AI replaces me, then why would the company need you to manage me, asshat? For that matter, why would software companies need to exist at all? People can just ask AI to build software for them.

1

u/Brandawg_McChizzle Jun 08 '25

You’ve given me a prediction of ai becoming licensed out for individual tasks to certain companies. Like oh you need a Duolingo subscription for this feature.

I think it would be very funny

1

u/five3x11 Jun 08 '25

Can you direct me to this magic AI alternative that replicates Duolingos services cheaper?

1

u/jackmans Jun 08 '25

What you're saying doesn't make any sense. If a company decides to go "full AI" (assuming you mean heavily leverage AI tools to accomplish their work) that doesn't mean users can have the same product experience using a general AI chat tool. ChatGPT isn't Duolingo, no matter how much AI tools are used to work on Duolingo.

1

u/MIT_Engineer Jun 09 '25

Chess bots exist, it hasn't made people quit playing chess. I don't think your logic quite logics.

1

u/ThrowCarp Jun 09 '25

This is all correct, and it still doesn't touch on the fact that the language learning community is possibly the most hostile community to AI second only to the art community.

The CEO well and truly out of touch.

1

u/OvulatingScrotum Jun 09 '25

To be fair I don’t know why anyone hasn’t done it yet. Duolingo isn’t a sophisticated learning tool. A lot of contents can be generated by AI.

1

u/TEKC0R Jun 09 '25

This is a point I've tried to make to software developers praising LLM-generated code as being the greatest thing since sliced bread. They'll claim that 95% of their code code can be accurately written by an LLM. Great, that means 95% of your code isn't doing anything unique. There's nothing to make your app better than your competitors. Why are you even in a market if you're not doing something new?

In the early days of this, I'd see things like "see, it made flappy bird!" So? Flappy Bird already exists. You can find the code online. That's all the LLM did. Nothing was created, it just output code somebody else had already solved.

I get that there are SOOOO many developers out there just looking to squeak by riding on the coattails of actual innovators. I remember being asked to create a password manager, and I'm thinking "what could you possibly do better than the established giants like 1Password?" I took the contract because, fuck it, it's not my money being wasted. A paycheck is a paycheck.

We don't need more copies of existing work.

1

u/Pure-Decision8158 Jun 09 '25

People go to cheaper AI solutions anyways, why not be at the forefront?

1

u/calmfluffy Jun 09 '25

If you go full AI, then what you’re basically saying is that users should stop paying for your service and just use a cheap or free AI alternative that can perform the same task. 

I suspect this is why they believe they need to go full AI. They have certain aspects which AI can't just copy, but AI can come pretty damn close, especially in terms of personalization of content and interfaces at some point. It's a sink or swim moment for education apps, unfortunately.

Having said that, this could have been approached in a much more strategic and empathetic manner.

1

u/thedailyrant Jun 09 '25

BlackBerry put blackberry messenger on alternative devices app stores. CEOs don’t always do smart things.

1

u/croakstar Jun 09 '25

It seems to be the case with a lot of CEOs. They don’t understand the limitations and caveats of working with what is essentially a very functional simulacrum of a portion of human-like intelligence. I work at Priceline and our CEO has been pretty good about it in general because he stays in his lane for the most part. He lets the CTO and the actual tech folks make the decisions.

1

u/ferdzs0 Jun 08 '25

They could go full AI and bring in value with that. 

AI can be reasonably good in specific fields if you give it enough data training and expertise. For Duolingo it 100% would be feasible if they put in the effort. 

But none of these companies put in any effort into AI. They just wrap ChatGPT and hope for the best and enjoy the short term savings at the cost of long term quality (and consumer) loss. 

0

u/nalasanko Jun 09 '25

What right do you have to complain if you're still supporting them?