In April of 2025, Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn sent an email to all Duolingo employees outlining the company’s plan to pursue an “AI-first” strategy, a message which was subsequently circulated around social media platforms like LinkedIn. The announcement included plans to “gradually stop using contractors for work that AI can handle,” even saying that “headcount will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work.”
Considerable backlash from the app’s user base followed. Duolingo, which built its stance as the global number one language learning app in large part around its playful branding and active social media engagement, saw mass unfollowings on social media. Many users called to abandon their long-time streaks in protest, speaking out against the changes. Now, a year after the scandal, Duolingo is still the number one language app globally, with over 50 million daily active users. So, the question remains, how was the company impacted by all of this?
The backlash that followed the announcement in April of 2025 was on social media platforms like Reddit, Youtube and LinkedIn, with the company’s TikTok account reportedly losing over 400,000 followers by May.
Duolingo responded by temporarily taking down posts from its TikTok and Instagram accounts, later resuming with lighthearted content seemingly trying to drive attention away from the public outcry. This move was criticized as being insincere and failing to address the actual problem of anger over replacing workers with AI.
Users expressed disappointment at trading efficiency for quality content, reporting issues on the app with repetitive content and inaccurate translations made by AI. This was fueled in part by a section of the original announcement from Ahn that read, “We can’t wait until this technology is 100% perfect. We’d rather move with urgency and take occasional small hits on quality than move slowly and miss the moment.”
In its reports, Duolingo has called 2026 an “investment year.” Despite its lower-than-projected growth in April following the scandal, the company continued to grow into 2026. Due to the changes in strategy that the company has been going through, the decreased growth in 2026 – with the company forecasting smaller bookings growth in 2026 compared to previous years – cannot be attributed to the scandal, despite what some on social media believe. The Globe and Mail states that Duolingo showed a transition “from hypergrowth to a more measured, investment-heavy phase while still operating with scale and profitability.”
Some of the company’s changes include scaling back on advertisements and working on changing its strategy from friction-based monetization – introducing obstacles in the user experience to encourage purchase of paid versions – to slower, less intrusive methods that would be better for user retention. The company plans on consumer tests to see if bringing AI features like Video Call from the Duolingo Max tier to the broader plan, called Super Duolingo, will be beneficial.
The question remains of whether the backlash that Duolingo faced was really a miscalculation on how users would perceive the message, or an inevitable reaction to the broader changes that the company wanted to make. In the past, Duolingo has made highly successful decisions – notably its transitions from desktop to mobile app and creating a gamified language learning experience, both of which led to drastic growth.
Green Hope student Kavya Sridharan (‘29), who learns Spanish on Duolingo, expresses conflicting thoughts between the potential efficiency of AI and its human cost. She shared that if AI can make language education cheaper and for a wider audience, the tradeoff may be worth it. Ultimately, she says, “I would say it’s one of the instances where AI shouldn’t be used, because AI doesn’t replace human interactions and language is one of those areas.”
Avani Bharadwaj (‘29), who’s been using Duolingo to help learn Korean for a year, says she already knew a lot about the language before starting the app. Her favorite aspect of Duolingo is that the app is free to use, but adds that, “It doesn’t really outline how to learn a language. It starts with giving random words like ‘crow’ that you don’t need,” and states that she wouldn’t want to learn a language entirely from AI.
What happens to Duolingo in the future, whether or not it rebounds in growth over the next few years, will be significant as it will indicate to the public and other brands if it really is possible to stop the trend towards AI in the workforce, whether efficiency at the cost of people is really all that is needed for the success of a company.
