Duolingo has become a sharp example in the debate over whether AI is already changing white-collar work. The company announced plans this week to replace contractors with AI and become an “AI-first” company, a decision that journalist Brian Merchant described as evidence that the AI jobs crisis “is here, now.”
The concern is not only that one company is changing how it staffs projects. The larger question is whether AI is becoming a management tool for reducing labor costs, replacing some contracted work and limiting the need for new human hires.
Why Duolingo became the example
Duolingo’s announcement drew attention because it was direct: the company said it would replace contractors with AI as part of a broader move toward being “AI-first.” That phrasing matters because it ties the use of AI to company identity, not just to one product or internal experiment.
Merchant argued that this is not a future scenario waiting somewhere down the road. He pointed to Duolingo as a current example of how AI can affect workers through routine business choices. In his framing, the issue is already visible in how executives decide which roles, projects and budgets still need people.
The source also notes that Merchant spoke with a former Duolingo contractor who said this was not a new policy. According to the article, Duolingo cut around 10% of its contractor workforce at the end of 2023. Merchant said there was another round of cuts in October 2024.
In both cases described in the source, the affected work shifted toward AI. First, translators were replaced with AI. Then writers were replaced with AI. That sequence is important because it shows the concern extending across more than one kind of language-based work.
The labor issue is broader than one company
The Duolingo example fits into a wider anxiety about where early-career and creative workers fit in an AI-heavy economy. Merchant also cited reporting in The Atlantic about the unusually high unemployment rate for recent college graduates.
The source presents two possible explanations connected to AI. Companies might be replacing entry-level white-collar jobs with AI. Or spending on AI might be “crowding out” spending that would otherwise go toward new hires.
Those are different mechanisms, but they can lead to a similar outcome for workers. In one case, software performs work that might previously have been assigned to a junior employee or contractor. In the other, the company’s budget moves toward AI systems and away from hiring.
Either way, the pressure lands on people who often depend on lower-rung opportunities to build a career. Recent graduates, freelance writers, translators, illustrators and other creative workers can be affected before a company ever announces a dramatic replacement plan.
What Merchant says the AI jobs crisis really is
Merchant’s argument, as summarized in the source, is that the AI jobs crisis should not be imagined as a sudden takeover by machines. He wrote that it is really “a series of management decisions being made by executives seeking to cut labor costs and consolidate control in their organizations,” and that it shows up as “attrition in creative industries, the declining income of freelance artists, writers, and illustrators, and in corporations’ inclination to simply hire fewer human workers.”
That description places responsibility on business choices rather than on AI as an independent force. The technology matters, but the article’s core point is that executives choose how it is deployed. They decide whether AI assists workers, reduces contractor pools or becomes a reason to hire fewer people.
This framing also explains why the effects can be hard to measure as one dramatic event. A company may not eliminate a whole category overnight. It may simply stop renewing contracts, reduce freelance budgets, cut teams in stages or avoid filling roles that once would have existed.
Merchant also added that “The AI jobs crisis is not any sort of Skynet-esque robot jobs apocalypse — it’s DOGE firing tens of thousands of federal employees while waving the banner of ‘an AI-first strategy,’” according to the source. The point is that the crisis, in this view, looks institutional and managerial, not cinematic.
What this means for AI-first companies
The phrase “AI-first” can sound like a product strategy, but the Duolingo case shows why workers may hear something more immediate. If becoming “AI-first” includes replacing contractors, then the strategy is not limited to improving tools or speeding up internal workflows. It also becomes a labor model.
For contractors, the risk is especially direct. Contract roles can be reduced or ended without the same visibility as large staff layoffs. The source’s account of cuts at the end of 2023 and in October 2024 shows how those changes can happen in rounds.
For creative industries, the concern is that AI can be used first in areas where output is already project-based: translation, writing, art and illustration. Merchant’s comments connect these changes to attrition, declining freelance income and a broader corporate preference for fewer human workers.
For recent graduates, the concern is slightly different but related. If companies use AI for tasks that once helped entry-level workers gain experience, the first step into white-collar work may become harder to find. If AI spending displaces hiring budgets, fewer openings may appear even when companies are still investing heavily in technology.
The debate Duolingo now represents
Duolingo is not the whole AI jobs story. But in the source article, it functions as a clear case study because the company’s stated direction, earlier contractor cuts and the types of work affected all point to the same question: who benefits when AI becomes central to company operations?
The facts described are narrower than the fear. Duolingo announced plans this week to replace contractors with AI and become an “AI-first” company. The source says the company cut around 10% of its contractor workforce at the end of 2023, and Merchant said another round came in October 2024.
But the implications are larger because these are not isolated technical choices. They are staffing decisions, budget decisions and control decisions. That is why Duolingo has become a symbol in the AI jobs debate: it shows how the future of work can change through ordinary corporate planning, one contractor group and one hiring decision at a time.