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Medium reported severity

Duolingo contract translator says they and half their team were off-boarded as the app shifted translation work to AI; company said AI was part of the reason

In a post and comments on r/duolingo on 28 December 2023, a person who says they had worked as a contract translator for Duolingo for five years writes that they were off-boarded about two weeks earlier, that two of their team's four core members were let go, and that the reason given was that AI can produce content and translations, with the two who remained reviewing AI output. In January 2024 Duolingo told TechCrunch, CNN and Semafor that it had cut about 10% of its contractor workforce at the end of 2023. It told CNN that not all of the cuts were due to AI but that contractors were let go to make room for AI-related changes in how content is generated, and told Semafor that calling AI the sole reason would be an oversimplification. It disputed the word layoffs and said only a small minority of contractors were let go as projects wrapped. The translator's account of what they were told is theirs alone; no company statement addresses any individual contractor.

AI system
GPT-4 (reported)
Occurred
Dec 2023
Reported
28 December 2023
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Relation unknown
Reported harm
Professional HarmPsychological Distress
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Work
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources
5 claims: 5 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 2 people

AI system as recorded: OpenAI GPT models that Duolingo uses to generate course sentences and translations, which human experts then validate, according to the company and TechCrunch

What Happened

The translator's account. On 28 December 2023 a Reddit user posted to r/duolingo that in December Duolingo had off-boarded a large share of its translation contractors. In comments on the same thread the poster wrote: "I was one of the translations off boarded. I’m so sad." They added that they had worked there for five years, that "Our team had four core members and two of us got the boot", and that "The two who remained will just review AI content to make sure it’s acceptable." Describing the stated reason, they wrote: "The reason they gave is that AI can come up with content and translations, alternative translations, and pretty much anything else translators did." The screenshot the poster attached is a Duolingo exit-survey email dated 15 December thanking the recipient for their time at the company; it gives no reason for the departure. The poster later wrote that the process was technically called off-boarding, not a layoff.

The company's statements. Duolingo told TechCrunch it had cut around 10% of its contractor workforce at the end of 2023 and that GPT is used to translate sentences, after which human experts validate the output. TechCrunch reported that the company disputed calling the departures layoffs, said only a small minority of contractors were let go as projects wrapped, and confirmed to Bloomberg that part of the reason it no longer needed as many people was attributable to AI. Duolingo told CNN that not all of the cuts were due to the technology, that contractors were let go to make room for AI-related changes in how content is generated and shared, and that it had tried to find alternate roles first. It told Semafor that humans would still review AI outputs and that it would be an oversimplification to say AI was the sole reason for the reduction.

Reported harm

A contract translator says they lost five years of work with Duolingo, along with half their team, and were told AI could now do translators' work; Duolingo confirmed cutting about 10% of contractors and said AI was part, but not all, of the reason.

Outcome

Resolved

The translator says they were off-boarded and received a final exit-survey email; two colleagues remained to review AI content. Duolingo confirmed in January 2024 that it had cut about 10% of its contractors at the end of 2023, said no full-time employees were affected and that it had tried to find alternate roles before off-boarding, and said AI would increasingly be used to create sentences, produce lists of acceptable translations and review error reports. No legal claim or later reinstatement is reported.

What remains unknown

  • How many contractors were let go in total and how many of those departures Duolingo attributes to AI.
  • What the company told the poster about the reason in writing; the attached exit-survey email gives none.
  • Where the poster and the other contractors worked.
  • Whether the poster later found other work or pursued any claim.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. This is a consequential response to a decision to adopt AI. Duolingo told TechCrunch that GPT translates sentences before human experts validate them, told CNN that contractors were let go to make room for AI-related changes in how content is generated, and confirmed to Bloomberg (as TechCrunch reports) that part of the reason it needed fewer people was AI. The translator says the reason given to them was that AI can produce content and translations. No AI output or action toward the translator is described, and the company says AI was not the sole reason.

5 claims: 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The poster says they had worked for Duolingo for five years as a contract translator in one of its top three languages and were off-boarded in December 2023, and that two of their team's four core members were let go.

Causal attribution. The poster's own account; TechCrunch relays it.

  • reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'I was one of the translations off boarded. I’m so sad.'; 'I worked there for five years. Our team had four core members and two of us got the boot.'; 'And I worked in one of their top three languages.'
  • techcrunch.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'writing that they were offboarded as a contractor on December 15, with a screenshot of an email from the company attached to the post'
Reported The poster says the reason given was that AI can produce content and translations, and that the remaining team members now review AI content.

Causal attribution. The poster attributes the AI reason to the company; no written statement of that reason to the poster was retrieved, and the attached email gives no reason.

  • reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'The reason they gave is that AI can come up with content and translations, alternative translations, and pretty much anything else translators did.'; 'The two who remained will just review AI content to make sure it’s acceptable.'
  • techcrunch.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'They kept a couple people on each team and call them content curators. They simply check the AI crap that gets produced and then push it through'
Reported Duolingo said it cut about 10% of its contractor workforce at the end of 2023, that part of the reason it needed fewer people was AI, and that AI was not the sole reason.

Causal attribution. Company statements relayed by three outlets; one origin (Duolingo), so reported.

  • techcrunch.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'The company confirmed it cut around 10% of its contractor workforce at the end of 2023'; 'the company also confirmed that part of the reason it no longer needed as many people was attributable to AI.'
  • cnn.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'While not all layoffs were due to the technology, the language learning company let go of some contractors at the end of 2023 to make room for AI-related changes in how content is generated and shared.'
  • semafor.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'it would be an “oversimplification” to say that AI is the sole reason for the reduction in jobs.'
Reported Duolingo said GPT is used to translate sentences, with human experts validating the output, and that AI would increasingly create sentences, produce lists of acceptable translations and review error reports.

Causal attribution. Company's description of its own AI use.

  • techcrunch.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'A company spokesperson explained to us that GPT is used to translate sentences and then “human experts validate that the output quality is high enough for teaching'
  • cnn.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Duolingo says AI will increasingly be used to perform tasks such as creating sentences for courses, producing lists of acceptable translations and reviewing user error reports'
Reported Duolingo disputed calling the departures layoffs, said only a small minority of contractors were let go as projects wrapped, that no full-time employees were involved, and that it tried to find alternate roles first.

Causal attribution. Company's qualifications of the cuts.

  • techcrunch.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'the company disputed calling the departures “layoffs,” saying that only a “small minority” of Duolingo’s contractors were let go as their projects wrapped.'
  • cnn.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Duolingo says no full-time employees were involved in the layoffs and that it attempted to find alternate roles for all those being let go before turning to “off-boarding” as a last option.'

Sources

4 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English on 2026-10-26: the post and the poster's 13 comments in the thread through the arctic_shift archive API (post by author, comments by link ID), and the live post through Reddit's RSS feed at about 03:00 UTC, whose text matches the archive. The live feed now shows the author as deleted; the poster's comments could not be checked live (HTTP 429). The handle is not recorded. Applies to s1.

Read in English on 2026-10-26 (HTTP 200, full article body). Applies to s2, s3, s4.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

Duolingo is headquartered in Pittsburgh, but the sources do not say where the contractors worked or lived; headquarters is not treated as the event location.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-26: Published as a consequential response to a decision to adopt AI: a contract translator's first-person account of being off-boarded with half their team, and Duolingo's own statements that it cut about 10% of contractors partly because of AI. The translator's account is attributed and the company's qualification that AI was not the sole reason is kept.

People described

A contract translator who says they worked for Duolingo for five years in one of its top three languages, and one teammate the translator says was also let go

People reported harmed in this case

At least 2 people

0 AI participants · 2 other people harmed

Additional affected people are described without a reliable count.

Two people are counted: the poster and the second of their team's four core members who, by the poster's account, was also let go. Duolingo says about 10% of its contractors were cut but gave no number, and the AI-related share is unstated, so other affected contractors are unquantified. Neither counted person is a direct AI user; the harm is the company's staffing decision.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#employment#contractors#translation#ai-replacement#consequential-response#reddit#first-person

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Duolingo contract translator says they and half their team were off-boarded as the app shifted translation work to AI; company said AI was part of the reason. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2023-duolingo-contract-translator-says-offboarded-with-half-their-team-as-company-shifted-translation-work-to-ai

BibTeX

@misc{2023_duolingo_contract_translator_says_offboarded_with_half_their_team_as_company_shifted_translation_work_to_ai,
  title = {Duolingo contract translator says they and half their team were off-boarded as the app shifted translation work to AI; company said AI was part of the reason},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2023-duolingo-contract-translator-says-offboarded-with-half-their-team-as-company-shifted-translation-work-to-ai}
}

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