The CEO of Duolingo admits that his controversial note of AI “did not give enough context” and insists that the company has never dismissed full -time employees

“It was on me. I did not give enough context,” said Von Ahn New York Times In a recent interview, asked about the controversial note. “We have never dismissed full -time employees. We do not plan. ”

Barely three months ago, the language learning platform with more than 100 million users stressed that “urgent displacement” describing a large plan to achieve the objective of being a “IA-ST” company.

The strategy included a gradual reduction in entrepreneurs to “do work that AI can manage” and increase the workforce only if “a team cannot automate more of their work”. Von Ahn insisted that the Memo A -Si -first was not examined members of Duolingo staff – but that the spectators quickly took arms online.

The CEO of Tech also added that this change is not new: “From the start, we had entrepreneurs that we use for temporary tasks, and our entrepreneur has increased and lowered as needed.”

Von Ahn has added that this work will probably change over the next five years because of the AI, but still, that does not mean that the staff cut in Duolingo.

“What will probably happen is that a person can accomplish more, rather than having fewer people,” he said.

Duolingo even began to encourage staff to use the weekly AI on Friday – an activity he called “Frai -Days”. Meanwhile, Duolingo teams are allowed to “experiment on how to become more effective in using AI,” added Von Ahn.

IA displacement at the workplace

Duolingo is not the only company to restore its outsourced roles and the entrepreneur as IA takes care of routine work. In mid -July, Scaleai dismissed around 500 entrepreneurs – more than double the 200 full -time staff who were released.

According to the MIT IA state in business 2025 report, the AI mainly moved offshore roles, not full -time national jobs. According to the report, automation of outsourcing has a return on investment of $ 2 to 10 million.

And while 3% of jobs could currently be replaced by AI, the MIT told Axios that this figure could reach almost a third of all longer -term jobs.

Although Duolingo insists that this will not cut full time, not all technological companies have adopted this approach. Enterprise Software Powerhouse IgniteTech dismissed 80% of its staff because they did not adapt quickly to AI – and its CEO says that it would do it again today.

“At the beginning of 2023, we saw the light,” said IgniteTech CEO Eric Vaughan Fortune, Adding that he thought that each technological enterprise was faced with a crucial inflection point around the adoption of artificial intelligence. “Now, I have certainly transformed myself to believe that it is all companies, and I mean that literally all companies are faced with an existential threat of this transformation.”