IBL News | New York
Luis Von Ahn, CEO and founder of Duolingo, announced that he plans to transform its language-learning app into an automated AI tutor.
This month, Duolingo unveiled a video chat allowing people to practice conversing in other languages with an AI friend, Lily, an early version of a fully automated tutor.
Chatting with Lily — a purple-haired, sarcastic, cartoon AI woman — requires purchasing a $ 30-a-month subscription tier called Duolingo Max. The dialogue is generated by OpenAI’s GPT-4o model.
Like a human tutor, Lily learns more about the user with each session. Duolingo also tries not to discourage users by having Lily correct their pronunciation or grammar, knowing that people get intimidated by their fear of mistakes.
As long as the AI “understands” what the user is saying, conversations continue without those reprimands. The company said it intentionally keeps conversations short to keep people engaged, capping them at about one minute for beginners and two and a half minutes for more advanced users.
Lily follows specific prompting techniques and content moderation guidelines to keep AI responses on the rails.
Another new AI addition is a mini-game called Adventures, which puts users in interactive situations to practice their language skills, like ordering a coffee from a cafe or getting their passport checked.
Regarding its organization, in 2023, Duolingo decided not to renew the contracts of 10% of its contracted workforce who did translations and lesson writing. The company opted to use AI for those tasks in many cases.
• “If we can automate something, we will,” von Ahn told Forbes. “A full-time employee’s job is tough to automate. But we had some hourly contractors who were doing pretty rote stuff,” said Luis Von Ahn.
• “AI will bring tough situations that’ll affect the poor, the less educated,” he said. “And not just in the U.S., but in poor countries.”
• “AI would be generally good for the world,” he said. “It may put one-on-one human tutors out of business. I understand that. But I think net-net it is better if everybody has access to one.”
• “AI will make computers better teachers than humans.”
The AI push caused Duolingo to generate a revenue hit of $178.3 million in the past quarter, up 41% from last year.
The company has a $11.75 billion market valuation with Von Ahn, who owns roughly 10%.
