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Language learning platform Duolingo has announced plans to go "AI-First," a strategy that will integrate AI into more of the company's workflow and eventually eliminate contract workers.
"AI is already changing how work gets done," writes Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn in a memo shared with employees and on the company's LinkedIn page. "When there's a shift this big, the worst thing you can do is wait."
In the memo, von Ahn also explains the rationale behind Duolingo's AI pivot. He highlights how AI can benefit the company and compares the current AI wave to the rise of mobile apps in 2012.
"To teach well, we need to create a massive amount of content, and doing that manually doesn't scale. One of the best decisions we made recently was replacing a slow, manual content creation process with one powered by Al," von Ahn writes.
"In 2012, we bet on mobile. While others were focused on mobile companion apps for websites, we decided to build mobile-first because we saw it was the future," von Ahn adds. "We're making a similar call now, and this time the platform shift is AI."
The announcement comes a year after Duolingo laid off close to 10% of its contractors after adopting AI for translation tasks. With a more aggressive adoption of AI, the company aims to gradually stop using contractors for work AI can handle.
They'll also be using AI for hiring and performance reviews. "Headcount will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work," says von Ahn.
Duolingo's futuristic approach, though aggressive and urgent, takes into consideration the nascency of the tech it's betting heavily on.
"Being Al-first means we will need to rethink much of how we work. Making minor tweaks to systems designed for humans won't get us there," von Ahn says. "We can't wait until the technology is 100% perfect. We'd rather move with urgency and take occasional small hits on quality than move slowly and miss the moment."
As the adoption of AI intensifies, various job sectors are expected to suffer minor and major impacts. Duolingo's development comes right after AI researcher Tamay Besiroglu announced a new start-up called Mechanize "to enable the full automation of all work." (Translation: Replace all humans workers everywhere.)