We often hear that AI will change all areas of life. Language learning app Duolingo is now demonstrating the impact of a corporate AI-centred structuring. — Photo: Zacharie Scheurer/dpa
NEW YORK: The language-learning app Duolingo is significantly shifting its emphasis in hiring, productivity and corporate structures toward the use of artificial intelligence.
Founder and chief executive Luis von Ahn wrote in an email to employees in late April that one of the best recent decisions was to rely on AI for creating learning materials.
Now, in a glimpse of how AI could transform many workplaces, Duolingo has announced how it plans to rethink its entire workflow on a large scale in an effort to go "AI-first".
Whether employees or job applicants are proficient in using AI will now play a role in both hiring decisions and employee evaluations, von Ahn said in a company-wide email shared on Monday.
"Being AI-first means we will need to rethink much of how we work," von Ahn said. Company departments will now only be expanded if the work can't be done by AI. Additionally, external contracts will gradually be phased out for tasks that AI can handle.
At the same time, von Ahn assured in the email, which was also published on the career network LinkedIn, that the intention is not to replace employees with AI. Instead, people should be enabled to focus on "creative work and real problems."
This marks the second announcement of its kind from a major tech company in just a few weeks. In early April, Shopify chief executive Tobias Lütke wrote to employees of the e-commerce platform that teams would only receive additional staff if they could prove that the work could not be done by AI. Overall, the use of AI is now considered a fundamental expectation for employees, he emphasised. – dpa
Duolingo's von Ahn shared the following AI-first policy guidelines in his email:
- We'll gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle
- AI use will be part of what we look for in hiring
- AI use will be part of what we evaluate in performance reviews
- Headcount will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work
- Most functions will have specific initiatives to fundamentally change how they work
