Duolingo plans to stop using contractors to do work that artificial intelligence (AI) can handle. That’s according to an email from co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn that was shared on LinkedIn.
The language learning company will become “AI-first” as part of a major rethink of how it manages working with contractors as well as its hiring and performance review processes.
The changes aim to help employees “focus on creative work and real problems,” von Ahn claimed.
Last month, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke said he has a “fundamental expectation” that employees at the e-commerce platform incorporate AI in their work, doubling down with new hiring policies. According to a staff memo, employees will have to “demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI” before requesting additional headcount or resources. Employees’ use of AI will also now be a component of their performance reviews.
Why Duolingo wants to swap contractors for AI
AI is changing how work gets done, and Duolingo must shift with the times, von Ahn said. “AI isn’t just a priority boost. It helps us get closer to our mission. To teach well, we need to create a massive amount of content, and doing that manually doesn’t scale.”
Being “AI-first” requires Duolingo to rethink much of how it does its work, von Ahn added. “Making minor tweaks to systems designed for humans won’t get us there.” In many cases, the firm will need to start from scratch. “We’re not going to rebuild everything overnight, and some things – like getting AI to understand our codebase – will take time.”
However, Duolingo can’t wait until the technology is 100 percent perfect, von Ahn continued. “We’d rather move with urgency and take occasional small hits on quality than move slowly and miss the moment.”
Duolingo will be rolling constructive restraints to help guide this shift:
- It will gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle.
- AI use will impact hiring decisions and performance reviews.
- Headcount will only be given if a team is unable to automate more of its work.
- Most functions swill have specific initiatives to fundamentally change how they work.
“All of this said, Duolingo will remain a company that cares deeply about its employees,” von Ahn stated. “This isn’t about replacing Duos with AI. It’s about removing bottlenecks so we can do more with the outstanding Duos we already have.”
Automation replaces some contingent workers
A recent report from Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) found that 14 percent of large staffing buyers have already replaced temporary workers with automation. Examples of roles being replaced by automation include manufacturing, administrative roles and repetitive tasks that bots can perform.
Automation is greater among larger buyers, with 21 percent of those with 100,000 or more directly employed workers saying they have replaced contingents with autonomous technology. No firm with less than 10,000 employees reported replacing contingents with automation, according to the survey.
The report also found that buyers primarily using industrial staffing were more likely to replace contingents with automation at 33 percent. Less likely were those primarily using IT staffing at 9 percent.
The figures suggest that, up to now, AI is mostly being used to supplement and reshape roles as opposed to completely replacing them, according to the Workforce Solutions Buyer Survey: 2025 Americas Results report.
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