Duolingo, the maker of language-learning software, is cutting some contractors as the app uses generative artificial intelligence to create more content.
About 10% of contractors were ¡°offboarded,¡± a company spokesperson said Monday. ¡°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,¡± the spokesperson said.
CEO Luis von Ahn said during an August earnings call that the company is using generative AI to ¡°speed up¡± scripts for the app ¡°and to more efficiently scale our course content.¡± The company also uses AI to generate voices within the app and has introduced a premium tier, Duolingo Max, with AI-generated feedback and conversations in other languages.
The spokesperson said the job reduction isn¡¯t a ¡°straight replacement¡± of workers with AI, as many of its full-time employees and contractors use the technology in their work. Duolingo had 600 full-time workers at the end of 2022, according to company filings. The spokesperson added that no full-time employees were affected by the cutback.
The shares rose 3.4% to $211.09 at 12:15 p.m. in New York after more than tripling in 2023.
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