Duolingo ending its highest paid tier as AI costs plummet

PITTSBURGH — Duolingo is ending its highest paid tier as AI models get cheaper to run.

Last quarter, Duolingo (NASDAQ: DUOL) CEO Luis von Ahn indicated that it might sunset its Duolingo Max paid tier in favor of moving the advanced features down to its lower tier, Super Duolingo. Now, on the company’s third-quarter earnings call, he confirmed that Max is ending.

“When we first started Duolingo Max, the highest subscription tier, what we did (was) start it because we had some AI features that were just very expensive to serve,” von Ahn said. “We did say back then that if we managed to bring the cost down, we may put these features in other tiers.”