Duolingo CEO surprised by backlash over AI replacing human contractors boast

Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn expressed surprise at the intense backlash he received after publicly boasting about replacing human contractors with AI earlier this year. The controversy highlights growing consumer resistance to AI automation in the workplace, forcing the language-learning company’s leadership into damage control mode as users threatened to abandon the platform en masse.

What happened: Von Ahn initially embraced AI replacement with enthusiasm, stating that Duolingo would “gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle” and that the company would “rather move with urgency and take occasional small hits on quality than move slowly and miss the moment.”

The backlash: Furious users on TikTok announced they’d be deleting the app despite their multi-year daily usage streaks, criticizing what they perceived as wholesale job elimination.

• Social media users characterized the changes as though “Duolingo has no employees, we have fired everyone and everything is being controlled by a massive AI,” according to von Ahn.
• The CEO admitted he “did not expect the amount of blowback” from the announcement.

Damage control efforts: Von Ahn has since walked back his earlier statements and attempted to reframe AI’s role at the company.

• Last month, he told Fortune: “I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do” and described AI as “a tool to accelerate what we do, at the same or better level of quality.”
• This week, he clarified to the Financial Times that only a “very small number of hourly contractors who are doing repetitive tasks” would be affected, adding that “many of these people are probably going to be offered contractor jobs for other stuff.”

Why this matters: The incident reflects broader consumer frustration with companies “stuffing AI into virtually every aspect of their digital lives,” creating what many view as a race to the bottom that undermines livelihoods for dubious technical gains.

Looking ahead: Despite the controversy, von Ahn maintains that AI adoption is inevitable, telling the Financial Times that a future where users spend “significant amount of time socially talking to AI” is “just inevitable”—an unsurprising stance given his nearly $2 billion net worth and vested interest in the technology.