With approximately 50 million monthly active users, Duolingo is one of the most popular language learning apps today. The fun and playful approach to learning, the integration of streaks and rankings are well known to motivate regular use of the app. It currently boasts 40 different languages, from popular languages like Japanese and Spanish to more niche languages like Klingon.
In Duolingo, AI primarily helps tailor lessons to provide an experience tailored to your proficiency level. This way, you get a customized set of exercises specifically focused on what you need to learn as a unique learner. The exercises themselves are also AI-generated, with computer algorithms shaping these exercises from raw human-generated content to create the audio you hear in the exercises. Human experts score specific exercise types, but most rely on AI for scoring.
Two other AI-powered features of Duolingo are Roleplay and Explain My Answer, both available in the newly introduced subscription tier Duolingo Max. These recent features take advantage of the powerful GPT-4 technology. Roleplay lets you practice real-life conversations by chatting with computer-generated characters. Meanwhile, Explain My Answer chats with the owl duo and details why your answer to a particular exercise is wrong. A human expert evaluates the conversations on both features to ensure accuracy.
