Using artificial intelligence is becoming a prerequisite for many jobs, but some companies are rethinking its value when it comes to assessing employees’ performance.
Nearly a year after announcing Duolingo would evaluate AI use in performance reviews, CEO Luis von Ahn said the company has let that metric go.
On April 28, 2025, he announced that the edtech company would be “AI-first,” and employees would be assessed on their AI use.
It’s sparked a public backlash, and von Ahn told the Financial Times last year that he “did not expect the blowback” after long-time Duolingo users commented they were deleting the app.
In an interview on the Silcon Valley Girl podcast last week, he described the feedback from employees, saying some began to ask if Duolingo just wanted them to use AI for AI’s sake.
“At the end, we backtracked, and we said ‘no.’ Look, the most important thing in your performance is that you are doing whatever your job is as well as possible. A lot of times AI can help you with that. But if it can’t, I’m not going to force you to do that,” von Ahn said.
“It felt like rather than being held accountable for the actual outcome, we’re trying to just push something that in some cases did not fit.”
Von Ahn’s new approach diverges from many companies that are going all in on incentivizing AI employee use. Until recently, Meta had a leaderboard of the top 250 AI token users company-wide, an employee-led effort that allowed workers to see how much AI their colleagues were using.
This month, employees at marketing automation platform Omnisend who are considered outstanding AI users will be awarded a 2%-4% raise. They will be evaluated on how much time and money their AI use saves, tangible outcomes from their AI workflows, and how widely those workflows are adopted.
But a recent global survey conducted by SAP subsidiary WalkMe found that workers are quietly ducking AI use. More than a third of employees surveyed skipped using AI on tasks because it would stop their workflow or cost them more time.
In addition to pushback on how employees are using AI, many employees see the technology as a direct threat to their jobs and livelihoods. Von Ahn’s AI-first declaration last year said the company would replace contractors with AI, which raised eyebrows.
Since then, von Ahn has clarified that he does not believe AI will replace his employees, but he wants to empower his employees to use the technology.
“The reality is it’s not yet the case that AI is better at coding than humans. I think you still really need engineers, and you’re going to need them for a long time,” he said on the podcast last week.
In his experience, AI-written code can be difficult to debug and is not consistently reliable when writing stories for Duolingo, von Ahn added.
“Duolingo has used AI for years to personalize learning and expand access. Technology is core to how we build. We’re always learning about what works, and we refine our approach as we go. That includes how we think about AI’s role across our teams,” a company spokesperson told Fortune in a statement. “Our teams’ work depends on human judgment, expertise, and creativity. AI tools assist with that work; they don’t make decisions or replace the people building Duolingo. What drives every decision we make is what’s best for learners.”
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