{"id":92386,"date":"2025-08-18T17:44:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T17:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/92386\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T17:44:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T17:44:06","slug":"duolingo-ceo-admits-his-controversial-ai-memo-did-not-give-enough-context-and-insists-the-company-never-laid-off-full-time-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/92386\/","title":{"rendered":"Duolingo CEO admits his controversial AI memo \u2018did not give enough context\u2019 and insists the company never laid off full-time employees"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Duolingo received backlash to its \u201cAI-first\u201d staff memo posted on LinkedIn <\/a>this April\u2014conjuring worries of mass layoffs<\/a>\u2014 the company\u2019s CEO Luis Von Ahn is setting the record straight. Now, the executive has doubled down that he doesn\u2019t intend to \u201clay off humans.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was on me. I did not give enough context,\u201d Von Ahn told The New York Times<\/a> in a recent interview when asked about the controversial memo. \u201cWe\u2019ve never laid off any full-time employees. We don\u2019t plan to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just three months ago, the language learning platform with over 100 million users emphasized having to \u201cmove with urgency,\u201d outlining a grand plan to achieve the goal of being an \u201cAI-first\u201d company.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The strategy included a gradual reduction in contractors to \u201cdo work that AI can handle,\u201d and increasing headcount only if \u201ca team cannot automate more of their work.\u201d Von Ahn insisted that the AI-first memo did not draw scrutiny from Duolingo staffers\u2014but that onlookers were quick to take up arms online.<\/p>\n

The tech CEO also added that this change is nothing new: \u201cFrom the beginning, we\u2019ve had contractors that we use for temporary tasks, and our contractor force has gone up and down depending on needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Von Ahn added that said work will likely change in the next five years because of AI\u2014but again that that doesn\u2019t mean staff cuts at Duolingo.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat will probably happen is that one person will be able to accomplish more, rather than having fewer people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Now, Duolingo has even started encouraging staff to use AI weekly on Fridays\u2014an activity he called \u201cf-r-A-I-days.\u201d During that time, Duolingo teams are allowed to \u201cexperiment on how to get more efficient in using AI,\u201d Von Ahn added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AI displacement in the workplace<\/p>\n

Duolingo isn\u2019t the only company trimming its outsourced and contractor roles as AI takes over routine work. In mid-July, ScaleAI laid off approximately 500 contractors<\/a>\u2014more than double the 200 full-time staffers who were let go.<\/p>\n

According to MIT\u2019s State of AI in Business 2025 report<\/a>, AI is primarily displacing offshore roles, not domestic full-time jobs. According to the reporting, automating outsourcing has a $2 million to $10 million return on investment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And while 3% of jobs could currently be replaced by AI, MIT told Axios<\/a> that that figure could rise to nearly a third of all jobs in the longer term.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And while Duolingo insists it won\u2019t cut full-timers, not every tech company has taken that approach. Enterprise software powerhouse <\/a>IgniteTech laid off 80% of its staff because they weren\u2019t adapting to AI fast enough\u2014and its CEO says he\u2019d do it again today.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn early 2023, we saw the light,\u201d IgniteTech CEO Eric Vaughan told Fortune, adding that he believed every tech company was facing a crucial inflection point around adoption of artificial intelligence. \u201cNow I\u2019ve certainly morphed to believe that this is every company, and I mean that literally every company, is facing an existential threat by this transformation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Duolingo received backlash to its \u201cAI-first\u201d staff memo posted on LinkedIn this April\u2014conjuring worries of mass layoffs\u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,11357,181,507,13652,62879,153,134,2539,7130,172,74,16722],"class_list":{"0":"post-92386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-app","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-billionaires","13":"tag-corporate-culture","14":"tag-gen-z","15":"tag-jobs","16":"tag-layoffs","17":"tag-return-to-office","18":"tag-tech","19":"tag-technology","20":"tag-workforce"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}