Why DuoLingo's CEO Reversed His AI Stance And What It Signals For Work

Forbes

3 hours ago

Three boys from the vintage future reading each other's minds
The start of 2025 was fraught with headlines about layoffs and changing hiring plans as companies adopt AI into their workflows and daily operations. This is already proving to be an overestimation of the capabilities of AI and its likelihood to replace humans across every job category.
Recently the CEO of DuoLingo walked back his statements about becoming an AI first (vs. human managed) company saying that instead he sees AI as a 'tool to accelerate what we do, at the same or better level of quality.'
Similarly in a direct challenge to statements made by the CEO of Anthropic, Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has gone on record saying that 'AI is a tool to enhance human decision making, not a replacement for it', adding that future career success depends on our ability to learn how to use these tools, not ignore or fear them.
While most professionals have already started using AI in their daily work, many are struggling to understand how to prioritize their exploration and understanding of these technologies, and most importantly, how to position this new knowledge to employers and leaders for career advancement opportunities.
This begs the most obvious question - 'how do I talk about my usage of AI without making it seem like it's doing my job for me'?
The answer to this question is actually quite simple, though it does require a bit of thought about how you reprioritize your daily activities.
For many of us AI has become a tool that dramatically cuts the amount of time we spend on repetitive or administrative tasks, including repetitive written communication.
AI has also opened up our creative capabilities allowing us to rapidly conduct unstructured research across various topics, and even brainstorm strategic plans without the need for hours of brainstorming and data gathering and synthesis.
The best way to communicate efficiencies driven by AI is not only to quantify the time that you're able to win back by leveraging this technology, but by clearly outlining the higher value work that you're now able to do with the extra time that you have – higher level work that simply can't be done by a machine.
How you think about positioning this for future career opportunities will depend on your level of seniority and domain of expertise.
More senior talent (i.e: managers and leaders) should be referencing how these tools have helped you drive increased operational excellence within your team, with a focus on tangible metrics that another employer may want to see in their own company.
Individual contributors can highlight specific tools that have helped them double or triple their output, creating demand for this knowledge at other firms that may have been slow to adopt these technologies across similar departments.
In a changing technological landscape it's more important than ever to be able to explain how your forward thinking adoption of technology can make you an invaluable asset to a team.
This is both due to the fact that there's varying degrees of understanding of new technologies, and different levels of success actually implementing it within particular organizations or departments.
Most importantly, this creates an opportunity for people that have actually learned to use these tools effectively to become trusted thought leaders in their respective fields.
No degree or certification can replace the credibility that comes with being able to show tangible results from the time invested in learning how to effectively use a new technology.
Better to spend your effort actively learning how to solve problems specific to your field or role vs. worrying about some distant future where technology might replace particular functions that humans shouldn't be spending their valuable time on anyways.