Duolingo’s CEO admits where he got AI wrong

Luis von Ahn says his viral AI memo was misunderstood, and that the company has learned a hard lesson: AI can boost productivity, but it still produces plenty of ‘slop.’ When Luis von Ahn, Duolingo’s CEO, sent an internal memo about AI last year, he didn’t expect it to go viral—or to ignite a firestorm about the future of work. Now he unpacks what he got right, what he got wrong, and what the backlash taught him about the real limitations of AI. It’s a candid reckoning with hype, growth, and the surprisingly complicated promise of technology in education.