Duolingo has been through a lot of changes over the past few years. What was once solely a language-learning app has grown into a social media marketing machine, a destination for math and music lessons, and now an online chess tutor.
In June, Duolingo launched a Duolingo Chess course to teach beginners the basic rules and moves by allowing them to play against an AI tutor named Oscar. This month, the company is taking the course further, launching a multiplayer version of the game where users can compete against one another.
Duolingo, which is on track to surpass $1 billion in revenue this year, has 48 million daily active users and 11 million paying subscribers. Though the company doesn’t reveal user numbers for the free chess course, at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in September, cofounder and CEO Luis von Ahn said that it had already notched “millions and millions of users” within three months.
Even more remarkable: Von Ahn greenlit the development of the chess course only nine months before it launched.
The story of how Duolingo created its hit chess course is the clearest illustration of how AI is transforming the company. Fast Company spoke with two of the principals behind the chess course. As they make clear, AI is not replacing engineers, but it is giving them a head start. Vibe coding has become a phenomenon, but we don’t have any high-profile examples of a hit product that relied on it. Until now.
