AI Hype Backlash: Duolingo CEO Joins Klarna, Shopify in Walking Back Overpromises on Automation

Another day, another tech exec eating humble pie. The CEO of Duolingo just joined the growing list of Silicon Valley leaders backtracking on their ’AI-first’ grandstanding—turns out replacing humans with algorithms isn’t as easy as their investor decks claimed.

Klarna and Shopify already got caught with their pants down when their much-hyped automation tools underwhelmed. Now language apps are getting the same reality check. Maybe next time they’ll wait for the tech to actually work before firing their support staff.

Funny how these ’disruptive’ visions always seem to align with cost-cutting spreadsheets. But hey—at least the VCs got their exits before the music stopped.

Duolingo defends AI-driven lessons amid backlash

On Duolingo’s TikTok and Instagram pages, critics flooded the comments. One user responded to a  video featuring a baby owl plushie by writing, “mama may I have real people running the company.”

In another TikTok video, von Ahn appeared opposite a masked, hoodie-clad figure to defend the move, saying “AI will allow us to reach more people.”

A spokesperson for Duolingo told Fortune that the company remains in hiring mode and is investing in employee training to make AI a benefit rather than a threat.

“We’re still growing our team, and we’re training and developing our talent so they benefit from using AI,” the spokesperson said. “All AI content is created under the direction and guidance of our learning experts. We have rigorous quality standards in place to ensure that any content we publish is safe, accurate, and aligned with the CEFR,” referring to an international framework for language proficiency.

Last month, payments app Klarna also backtracked on claims that its AI chatbot outperformed human staff, admitting that the bot’s “lower quality” responses meant it would resume hiring people. E-commerce platform Shopify faced the criticism as well after suggesting in an internal memo that AI-driven gains would reduce the need for new hires.

AI’s promise falls short in most jobs

Observers say these reversals highlight a gap between the enthusiasm for an “AI-first” approach among investors and executives and its reception by regular users and employees. Generative AI often uses huge amounts of data without reliable information, produces errors or strange outputs, and operates in a regulatory gray zone.

Moreover, the expected productivity gains have only shown up in a few limited cases.

An IBM survey of 2,000 business leaders found that 75% of AI projects fail to meet their return-on-investment targets. A National Bureau of Economic Research study of 25,000 workers in industries exposed to AI saw no significant increases in productivity, wages, or hours worked.

“This tool that’s been adopted so fast, where the expectations are so high, [was] not making a difference in earnings was a surprise to me,” said Anders Humlum, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and one of the NBER study’s authors.

He noted that the shift toward AI assistance is “much smaller and much slower” than its backers often claim.

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