I’ve stated this in Q&As and lots of conferences, however I wish to make it official: Duolingo goes to be AI-first.
AI is already altering how work will get carried out. It’s not a query of if or when. It’s occurring now. When there’s a shift this large, the worst factor you are able to do is wait. In 2012, we guess on cellular. While others have been centered on cellular companion apps for web sites, we determined to construct mobile-first as a result of we noticed it was the longer term. That choice helped us win the 2013 iPhone App of the Year and unlocked the natural word-of-mouth development that adopted.
Betting on cellular made all of the distinction. We’re making an identical name now, and this time the platform shift is AI.
AI isn’t only a productiveness increase. It helps us get nearer to our mission. To train effectively, we have to create a large quantity of content material, and doing that manually doesn’t scale. One of the most effective choices we made just lately was changing a sluggish, guide content material creation course of with one powered by AI. Without AI, it could take us many years to scale our content material to extra learners. We owe it to our learners to get them this content material ASAP.
AI additionally helps us construct options like Video Call that have been unattainable to construct earlier than. For the primary time ever, educating in addition to the most effective human tutors is inside our attain.
Being AI-first means we might want to rethink a lot of how we work. Making minor tweaks to techniques designed for people received’t get us there. In many instances, we’ll want to begin from scratch. We’re not going to rebuild every thing in a single day, and a few things-like getting AI to grasp our codebase-will take time. However, we are able to’t wait till the expertise is 100% excellent. We’d slightly transfer with urgency and take occasional small hits on high quality than transfer slowly and miss the second.
We’ll be rolling out just a few constructive constraints to assist information this shift:
We’ll progressively cease utilizing contractors to do work that AI can deal with
AI use will likely be a part of what we search for in hiring
AI use will likely be a part of what we consider in efficiency evaluations
Headcount will solely be given if a crew can’t automate extra of their work
Most capabilities can have particular initiatives to basically change how they work
All of this stated, Duolingo will stay an organization that cares deeply about its staff. This isn’t about changing Duos with AI. It’s about eradicating bottlenecks so we are able to do extra with the excellent Duos we have already got. We need you to give attention to artistic work and actual issues, not repetitive duties. We’re going to help you with extra coaching, mentorship, and tooling for AI in your operate.
Change may be scary, however I’m assured this will likely be an awesome step for Duolingo. It will assist us higher ship on our mission — and for Duos, it means staying forward of the curve in utilizing this expertise to get issues carried out.
–Luis
