Ordinarily, one would not expect Duolingo to be the top consumer of tokens for OpenAI’s various models. Yet, this is exactly what one X post is now postulating, sans an official verification from OpenAI itself.
Duolingo’s Isaac Andersen Features At The Top Of A List Of OpenAI Customers Who’ve Consumed Over 1 Trillion Tokens
As per our research, the CEO and co-founder of Prompt Security, Itamar Golan, first shared this alleged list of top 30 OpenAI customers via an X post. The list was then picked up by the OpenAI Developer Community forum, from where it has proliferated far and wide.
While we can’t independently verify the authenticity of this list, Golan’s credentials appear to be quite solid, lending a sheen of legitimacy to his X post.
Apart from Duolingo, the list also mentions Salesforce, Shopify, T-Mobile, and Perplexity among its notable inclusions.
Duolingo Appears To Be Going All In On AI
As we noted recently, Duolingo was the world’s most downloaded education app in 2024, and it has a relatively committed user base, judging by its 34.2 million Daily Active Users (DAUs) in 2024, and 9.5 million premium subscribers (as of Q4 2024). This means that the app is converting over a quarter of its DAUs into actively paying customers, which is a remarkable feat. For comparison, Elon Musk’s X only had 1.4 million premium users at the end of 2024, which accounted for less than 1 percent of its total userbase.
And, in hindsight, it is not surprising that Duolingo would top the list of OpenAI’s top customers. After all, the app leverages artificial intelligence extensively to offer its users customized lessons and real-time feedback.
Here are all of the ways in which Duolingo leverages AI:
Duolingo’s AI engine “Birdbrain” tailors lessons according to the performance metrics of each user.
The app strategically reinforces weak concepts via spaced repetition by leveraging AI.
Duolingo uses LLMs to accelerate content development.
Premium customers can also avail an AI-powered, in-depth answer feedback and explanation service.
Duolingo also uses AI in roleplay settings and for its virtual tutor, Lily.