Duolingo has recently turned to generative AI to streamline content creation, resulting in a reduction of approximately 10% of its contractors. On Monday, a Duolingo spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that while the company had made job cuts, they did not affect any full-time employees.
The spokesperson stated, “We just no longer need as many people to do the type of work some of these contractors were doing. Part of that could be attributed to AI.”
In response to reports of job reductions in late December, a spokesperson clarified to PC Mag Australia that the contractor adjustments were not “layoffs,” but rather that these contractors had been “offboarded” after completing their projects at the end of 2023.
Reports from a Reddit user claiming to have worked at Duolingo indicated that the company had scaled back its contracted translators, keeping only a portion of its core team to review AI-generated content.
While Duolingo has been incorporating machine learning in its platform for years, the introduction of the Language Learning Model (LLM) last June marked a shift towards AI-generated exercises from prompts, a departure from exercises previously curated and refined by human experts.
While emphasizing the need for human oversight, Duolingo pointed out the efficiency and convenience brought by AI-generated content, a vision reflected in its blog where the company underlined the potential of AI in enhancing productivity for their in-house teachers.
Furthermore, Duolingo unveiled a premium subscription tier, Duolingo Max, last March, featuring new tools driven by OpenAI’s GPT-4, with plans for expansion to additional courses and platforms beyond its current support for French and Spanish for English speakers on iOS.
Topics
Apps
Artificial Intelligence
