The news: Duolingo is accelerating content creation with AI but deprioritizing cost optimization. In 2025, its priority is to make AI-powered conversation features more interactive and differentiate its premium Duolingo Max subscription offering.
Its cost of revenues in 2024 grew to $203.6 million, up 43% YoY, due to increased generative AI (genAI) expenses. Revenue from subscriptions in 2024 increased 50% YoY to $607.5 million and daily active users in Q4 hit 40 million, up 51% YoY.
Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn said automation is speeding up content creation, with output increasing tenfold compared with two years ago. Despite automation gains, it plans to maintain hiring levels and even add employees faster and earlier in 2025 than it did last year.