What Duolingo's AI-first backlash reveals about the power of people
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A little over a month ago, the CEO of Duolingo sent out what he felt was a very smart internal email about being AI first.
The backlash that followed was something none of us could have predicted. And I think it really marked a moment where the public conversation around AI fundamentally shifted.
When you say "we're going AI first," because there is general AI anxiety across the whole world, you are basically putting everybody's guard up when you officially make an announcement like that.
The Email That Started Everything
This is the tone with a lot of these emails going out from CEOs: "Look, everyone else is using AI. The cat's out of the bag. We have to catch up. We're not just going to use this for a little bit of productivity here and there. I want everybody that works here to take AI seriously. And if you don't..."
That's the part where people get scared.
The CEO wrote: "AI isn't just a productivity boost. It helps us get closer to our mission."
When you say that, it almost sounds kind of grandiose to begin with. And historically when corporations lead with something like that, there is usually some bad news coming right after.
You're basically telling existing teams that work in that department: "Hey, we're not doing good enough." But instead of saying "we're going to use these tools to help speed things up," what people hear is "AI is already helping to replace me in what I'm doing."
And you're dressing it up in this mission language, which is annoying when it's not really meant to be that way.
The Paragraph That Made Everyone Mad
"AI also helps us build features like video call that were impossible to build before. For the first time ever, teaching as well as the best human tutors is within our reach."
When you hear that as humans, you're like, "Okay, well that doesn't sound like good news. Why are you telling me like this is good news?"
If you weren't pissed at that last paragraph, this one is gonna make you go "okay, so what you're saying is you want the human tutors to be basically replaced with AI versions and you're saying that they can do just as great of a job as humans are."
Which is another slap in the face after you have just slapped your entire marketing and media department.
So far in this email we have basically slap in the faces one direction, and a second to send it back in the other direction.
Five Bullets That Sounded Like Threats
Instead of using this paragraph to finally address that "look, being AI first does not mean that we are not human first" and really addressing some of these concerns that you've flared up so far, you are basically telling your entire workforce that not only is this technology going to cause job insecurity, but at the same time things are gonna be tough.
You're gonna need to work harder than you've worked before if you thought that was hard - well you haven't seen it coming, because AI is gonna make things even harder.
- 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
In those five bullets, there was nothing focused on helping the human. Every single bullet was basically a threat veiled as improvement.
Too Little, Too Late
Finally we get what we've been waiting for: "All of this said, Duolingo will remain a company that cares deeply about its employees." That part is bolded.
Why didn't you lead with that? Maybe if you started with that, we would be a little bit more receptive to what you're saying.
But no, this is all the way at the bottom of the email. You've spent four paragraphs and five bullets basically saying "Hey, step your game up, or else I don't know what's gonna happen." And then you basically give this empty kind of corporate "oh yeah, Duolingo will remain a company that cares deeply about its humans."
What I find kind of wild about this last paragraph is how it goes "but I'm confident this will be a great step for Duolingo" - and of course it's gonna be great for Duolingo, but you've spent the whole email making the workers and humans feel separate from this entity that is Duolingo.
Even when you do acknowledge that this will be great for the employees, it doesn't sound compelling. There's no appreciation for the humans. There's no empowerment for "we're all doing this together."
It almost feels like there has been this separation between "okay, we're leadership, then there's AI, and then there's you human workers."
What the Backlash Revealed
The backlash that followed was so intense that basically Duolingo took off their socials. They've made it not visible, and every post that they were posting was getting AI criticism. It was not like they could just ignore it and it would blow over.
The CEO of Duolingo said that he did not expect the blowback that it got.
If you are writing an email like this, even if it's internally, you should write it with something that is ready to be leaked. Ready to be shared with people. And I do not think this was ready for that.
Here's what stands out to me the most from this backlash: it is the absolute power that people have when they come together, specifically with certain products that are more consumer focused.
In the B2B world, it is pretty cheered on to some extent that you are using AI. Because guess what? It's helping us all make more money. But as soon as you venture into B2C territory - and let's acknowledge that Duolingo is mainly a B2C service - you now have this world where $10, $12 a month is considered to be high for a premium tier of an app.
All of a sudden if you have made everyday consumers really mad with what you're about to do, they do have the power to band together and boycott you. And that can have very real effects to your company.
The Bigger Pattern
What this situation has forced us all to consider and think about is what happens when there are way more AI powered, AI enabled businesses that are trying to basically push AI on you and on their employees.
And there are more people who have been impacted and affected by AI in a negative way - where they've lost their job, they've been replaced, they got fired, the performance review thing in whatever way AI negatively affects you.
If there are more people in that category, you have less disposable income. Less predictability on people buying your apps and supporting your stuff.
I think the companies that have successfully navigated this change are ones that are able to actually really hammer and lead with "Hey, this is not replacing you humans. We couldn't do this without you."
Instead, the focus a lot of the time is on how inefficient things are already and how welcomed this technology is. The failure on a lot of CEO's parts is they're supposed to be a filter on what information gets out, how things are said, because the way that you say them can actually cause panic, not just within your company, but in markets.
The Real Lesson
When you have retention being affected, where there's no incentive for people to want to come work for you because you might cut them in six months because there's a new AI tool that's out - that becomes problematic for a lot of these bigger corporations.
Your employees are finding out how you feel about this by the tone that you're sending, which is like "Hey, we're scared. We're scared that every other company is using AI. Now we have to step up our game. You need to wake up and work harder."
People will remember that. Especially in a couple years when the dust settles and you have a normalization of this stuff.
I think the companies that will really win a lot of the talent are the ones that are prioritizing - yes, they're using AI too, but they are prioritizing the human incentives and benefits and how they're actually trying to make your life a little better.
That is a message that I have not seen pushed as hard, but I guarantee you that it's coming.
There will be more CEOs that take notice as to what happened with this and hopefully begin to change their tone.
A 4 day workweek if productivity can be increased? Who knows.
And hopefully it's real too, and it's not just something that's a positioning thing that they're saying.
In your corner,
Misbah Haque
Author & Consultant at Pod Mahal
Writer & Host of Habit Chess
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