Duolingo’s AI pivot didn’t land quietly. After CEO Luis von Ahn said in a May memo that new hires would only be approved if managers could prove AI couldn’t do the job, it prompted speculation about layoffs and a backlash on LinkedIn.
Some users threatened to cancel paid subscriptions, arguing that AI-generated lessons risked eroding trust in the platform. “If I wanted AI-generated language learning content, I’d go ask ChatGPT,” one commenter wrote on von Ahn’s LinkedIn announcement.
By September, Duolingo confirmed its AI investments hadn’t led to any full-time employees being laid off. Instead, AI is boosting human productivity, von Ahn said at Fast Company’s Innovation Festival.
Beyond content, Duolingo also brought its ad tech stack in-house with Duolingo Ads, giving brands tighter access to its characters and roughly 50 million daily users, ADWEEK previously reported.
Duolingo was unavailable for comment at the time of publication. – Trishla Ostwal
Klarna rode the AI wave to its IPO
In 2025, AI moved beyond a “party trick” for Klarna, its CMO David Sandstrom told ADWEEK. The tech now runs through marketing, operations, and customer support—helping the buy-now-pay-later firm generate roughly $1 million in revenue per employee.
The fintech firm made its IPO debut in September at nearly a $20 billion valuation and has built a U.S. customer base of 111 million across roughly 790,000 merchants. Over the 12 months ending June 30, Klarna handled $112 billion in transactions. AI has helped cut costs: marketing spend fell 12% while agency reliance dropped, and AI-driven content production boosted asset output by 600%.
Its AI assistant now performs tasks equivalent to 800 full-time agents, freeing employees for higher-value work and letting the company reinvest a $10 million “efficiency dividend” into growth and brand initiatives, a company spokesperson told ADWEEK.
Looking to 2026, Klarna plans to scale AI further to automate repetitive tasks while keeping humans central to complex interactions, and expand marketing across 26 markets and more than 35 languages, the spokesperson added. – Trishla Ostwal
CaliBBQ cooked up a creative case for AI
