After Duolingo acquired backlash for its “AI-first” employees memo posted on LinkedIn this April—conjuring worries of mass layoffs—the corporate’s CEO, Luis von Ahn, is setting the report straight. Now, the chief has doubled down that he doesn’t intend to “lay off people.”
“This was on me. I didn’t give sufficient context,” von Ahn instructed the New York Occasions in a current interview when requested concerning the controversial memo. “We’ve by no means laid off any full-time staff. We don’t plan to.”
Simply three months in the past, the language studying platform with over 100 million customers emphasised having to “transfer with urgency,” outlining a grand plan to realize the aim of being an “AI-first” firm.
The technique included a gradual discount in contractors to “do work that AI can deal with,” and growing headcount provided that “a workforce can’t automate extra of their work.” Von Ahn insisted that the AI-first memo didn’t draw scrutiny from Duolingo staffers—however that onlookers had been fast to take up arms on-line.
The tech CEO additionally added that this transformation is nothing new: “From the start, we’ve had contractors that we use for short-term duties, and our contractor power has gone up and down relying on wants.”
Von Ahn added that stated work will probably change within the subsequent 5 years due to AI—however once more that that doesn’t imply employees cuts at Duolingo.
“What is going to in all probability occur is that one individual will be capable to accomplish extra, reasonably than having fewer folks,” he stated.
Duolingo has even began encouraging employees to make use of AI weekly on Fridays—an exercise he known as “F-r-A-I-days.” Throughout that point, Duolingo groups are allowed to “experiment on methods to get extra environment friendly in utilizing AI,” von Ahn added.
AI displacement within the office
Duolingo isn’t the one firm trimming its outsourced and contractor roles as AI takes over routine work. In mid-July, ScaleAI laid off roughly 500 contractors—greater than double the 200 full-time staffers who had been let go.
Based on MIT’s State of AI in Enterprise 2025 report, AI is primarily displacing offshore roles, not home full-time jobs. Based on the report, automating outsourcing has a $2 million to $10 million return on funding.
And whereas 3% of jobs may at present get replaced by AI, MIT instructed Axios that that determine may rise to just about a 3rd of all jobs in the long run.
Although Duolingo insists it received’t reduce full-timers, not each tech firm has taken that strategy. Enterprise software program powerhouse IgniteTech laid off 80% of its employees as a result of they weren’t adapting to AI quick sufficient—and its CEO says he’d do it once more right now.
“In early 2023, we noticed the sunshine,” IgniteTech CEO Eric Vaughan instructed Fortune, including that he believed each tech firm was dealing with an important inflection level round adoption of synthetic intelligence. “Now, I’ve actually morphed to imagine that that is each firm, and I imply that actually each firm, is dealing with an existential menace by this transformation.”
