April 30 (UPI) -- Duolingo more than doubled its offerings of language courses to help people learn a second language and become multilingual with the help of generative artificial intelligence.
The new courses were announced on Wednesday after officials at the tech company earlier were criticized for announcing it would become an "AI-first" firm, TechCrunch reported.
Duolingo plans to replace its contractors with AI, which enabled it to offer the largest expansion of language courses in its history.
The new language courses include seven of the most popular non-English languages, including Spanish, French, German and Italian, Duolingo announced in a news release.
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New offerings also include Japanese, Korean and Mandarin, which are among the most popular Asian languages.
"Developing our first 100 courses took about 12 years," said Luis von Ahn, Duolingo's chief executive officer and co-founder.
"Now, in about a year, we're able to create and launch nearly 150 new courses," Ahn said. "This is a great example of how generative AI can directly benefit our learners."
Prior to generative AI, creating a language course took much longer to accomplish, but Duolingo teams are creating base language courses in less than a year and can tailor them for different languages.
"It used to take a small team years to build a single new course from scratch," said Jessie Becker, senior director of learning and design at Duolingo.
"By using generative AI to create and validate content, we'reable to focus our expertise where it's most impactful," Becker said.
The new courses mostly are aimed at beginners who want to learn the basics while learning how to communicate in a new language.
The lessons include stories that are designed to develop people's reading comprehension, while DuoRadio develops listening comprehension.
More than a billion potential learners could access the virtual language courses around the world, according to Duolingo.
Different courses are available for those in Latin America, Europe and Asia and tailored for languages within each region.
The current course offerings are tailored for those who speak 28 different languages with learning occurring via a user interface, The Verge reported.
The basic courses will be enhanced to include more advanced content for those who already have a basic understanding of other languages.
Early last year, the company made headlines as Russian investigators said they were looking into Pittsburgh-based Duolingo's alleged use of LGBTQ+ characters to "spread LGBT propaganda," as claimed by Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor.
