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Duolingo did cut contractors who worked on lessons and translation-related tasks, and its CEO later said AI was probably the biggest reason for the reduction. But the available reporting does not show that the company fired all its translators: it confirmed an approximately 10% cut to its contractor workforce at the end of 2023, without disclosing a headcount or the number of translators affected.
What happened to Duolingo’s translators?
The Washington Post reported in January 2024 that Duolingo reduced contractors who wrote lessons and proposed translations. Company spokesperson Sam Dalsimer told the newspaper that Duolingo cut around 10% of its contractors at the end of 2023. That is an approximate share of contractors overall—not a count of people, a translator-only figure, or evidence that every translator lost work.
Former contractors described reductions in August and December 2023. Some said teams supporting dozens of language programs were affected. The company did not disclose how many individuals were let go, and the reporting does not establish a comprehensive account of what happened to those workers afterward.
Was AI the reason for the cuts?
In the January 2024 report, Duolingo described AI as a productivity and efficiency tool intended to help it add content and improve courses faster. Dalsimer said the company tried to find alternate roles for every contractor. Former workers interviewed by the Post gave a different account: some said they were not offered another role. The company’s effort to find alternatives and the workers’ accounts are competing claims, not a settled explanation of every contractor’s experience.
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The CEO’s later explanation made AI’s role clearer. On Duolingo’s February 28, 2024 earnings call, Luis von Ahn said AI was probably the biggest reason for reducing the contractor workforce. He distinguished those reductions from full-time employee layoffs, and described AI for both content creation and interactive learning features such as role-play and answer explanations. The earnings-call transcript records his remarks.
At the time of the January 2024 report, Duolingo told the Post that it had not yet deployed fully AI-generated sentences in its courses. That was a dated statement about the product then; it should not be read as a description of the company’s later policy or current content.
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How did Duolingo’s AI policy change?
| When | What Duolingo said or did | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| Late 2023, reported January 2024 | The company confirmed cutting around 10% of its contractors. Former contractors described reductions affecting lesson-writing and translation-related work. | An approximate contractor reduction, not a translator headcount or proof that all translators were dismissed. The Washington Post |
| February 28, 2024 | Von Ahn told investors AI was probably the biggest reason for reducing the contractor workforce. | The CEO linked AI to the contractor reduction and discussed content creation and interactive features. Earnings-call transcript |
| April 2025 | An employee memo announced an AI-first direction, including gradually stopping the use of contractors for work AI could handle. | A forward policy of automating some contractor work. YourStory’s account of the memo |
| Later 2025 | Von Ahn said the memo lacked clarity, that he did not see AI replacing employees, and that hiring continued at the same speed. | A clarification about employees; it does not retract the contractor policy. LinkedIn News |
The distinction between contractors and employees matters. The 2025 clarification reassured employees about replacement and hiring; it did not say that contractor work AI could handle would be retained.
What does Duolingo say about AI in its courses now?
Duolingo’s current company strategy page describes AI as part of expanding course content and supporting features including Math and AI-supported Video Call. The company’s strategy blog says it shipped 7,500 content units in 2024, compared with 425 in 2021, and associates the increase with AI-enabled content generation. Those are company-reported figures, not an independent count of AI-authored lessons.
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Neither source states what percentage of current course content is generated by AI or sets out a complete current human-review process. The available figures therefore show reported growth in content output and the company’s use of AI, but do not establish how much lesson writing or translation is performed by AI, or how each item is reviewed.
Quick Recap
What is known—and what is not
- Established: Duolingo confirmed an approximately 10% reduction in contractors at the end of 2023, and the CEO later identified AI as probably the biggest reason.
- Not established: The exact number of people affected, how many were translators, or whether all translators were dismissed.
- Disputed: Whether every contractor was offered an alternate role. The company said it tried to find alternatives; some former workers said they were not offered one.
- Not stated by the current company strategy page: The proportion of lessons generated by AI and a complete human-review policy.
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