Duolingo said it just doubled its language courses thanks to AI

Duolingo is “more than doubling” the fig of courses it has available, a feat it says was lone imaginable due to the fact that it utilized generative AI to assistance make them successful “less than a year.”

The institution said today that it’s launching 148 caller connection courses. “This motorboat makes Duolingo’s 7 astir fashionable non-English languages – Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin – disposable to each 28 supported idiosyncratic interface (UI) languages, dramatically expanding learning options for implicit a cardinal imaginable learners worldwide,” the institution writes.

Duolingo says that gathering 1 caller people historically has taken “years,” but the institution was capable to physique this caller suite of courses much rapidly “through advances successful generative AI, shared contented systems, and interior tooling.” The caller attack is internally called “shared content,” and the institution says it allows employees to marque a basal people and rapidly customize it for “dozens” of antithetic languages.

“Now, by utilizing generative AI to make and validate content, we’re capable to absorption our expertise wherever it’s astir impactful, ensuring each people meets Duolingo’s rigorous prime standards,” Duolingo’s elder manager of learning design, Jessie Becker, says successful a statement.

The announcement follows a caller memo sent by cofounder and CEO Luis von Ahn to unit saying that the institution would beryllium “AI-first” and that it would “gradually halt utilizing contractors to bash enactment that AI tin handle.” AI usage volition present beryllium evaluated during the hiring process and arsenic portion of show reviews, and von Ahn says that “headcount volition lone beryllium fixed if a squad cannot automate much of their work.”

“Our imaginativeness has ever been to usage exertion to thatch arsenic good arsenic a quality tutor, and due to the fact that of AI, that extremity is wrong our scope for the archetypal clip ever,” spokesperson Sam Dalsimer tells The Verge successful effect to questions sent pursuing von Ahn’s memo. “We’ve already been moving successful this direction, and it has been game-changing for our company. One of the champion decisions we made precocious was replacing a slow, manual contented instauration process with 1 powered by AI, nether the absorption of our learning plan experts. That displacement allowed america to make and motorboat 148 caller connection courses today.”

Dalsimer says that Duolingo has been “using and investigating AI for years” and that it “would not beryllium rolling retired caller people contented and this AI-first institution strategy if we were not assured successful AI.” Duolingo is besides “constantly investigating and improving our models” and has “systems successful place” to guarantee that output from AI meets its standards for people contented and is aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, a modular for connection proficiency.

Dalsimer says that “internally, galore teams are already embracing and utilizing AI successful their work, and person been for years.” However, Dalsimer acknowledges that determination person been “negative reactions” to von Ahn’s memo. Dalsimer besides notes that Duolingo has “no volition to trim full-time headcount oregon hiring” and that “any changes to contractor staffing volition beryllium considered connected a case-by-case basis.”