Duolingo smashed revenue estimates despite heavy backlash over ditching humans for generative AI. The company’s stock jumped nearly 30% after the earnings drop Wednesday.
The issue started in April when CEO Luis von Ahn announced Duolingo would become an “AI-first” company, cutting contract workers to focus on AI automation. He urged teams not to hire unless truly needed, using AI to launch 148 new language courses—doubling the platform’s previous catalog.
Von Ahn said scaling without AI would take decades. 
“Without AI, it would take us decades to scale our content to more learners,” Luis von Ahn wrote.
“We owe it to our learners to get them this content ASAP.”
User complaints flooded social media, claiming AI ruined the app. But the numbers tell another story. Duolingo expects to cross $1 billion in revenue this year. Daily active users rose 40% year-over-year—on the low end of the company’s 40%-45% target.
Von Ahn admitted the AI talk hurt sentiment and forced a social media tone change.
“The reason we came [in] towards the lower end was because I said some stuff about AI, and I didn’t give enough context. Because of that, we got some backlash on social media,” he said.
“The most important thing is we wanted to make the sentiment on our social media positive. We stopped posting edgy posts and started posting things that would get our sentiment more positive. That has worked.”
TikTok comments still skew critical. When fans jokingly ask if Duolingo’s multi-person videos are AI-created, the company replies: “Nope. Made by our great team!”
Public gripes remain loud, but the revenue shows Duolingo’s shift to AI is paying off—for now.
