Duolingo Adds an AI-Powered Subscription Tier

The makers of the language learning app Duolingo announced a new Duolingo Max subscription service that’s powered by OpenAI’s newly released GPT-4.

“We believe that AI and education make a great duo, and we’ve leveraged AI to help us deliver highly-personalized language lessons, affordable and accessible English proficiency testing, and more,” the Duolingo team announced. “Our mission to make high-quality education available to everyone in the world is made possible by advanced AI technology. That’s why we’re excited to take advantage of GPT-4, the newest technology from OpenAI, to make learning with Duolingo even more powerful.”

Duolingo already offered a subscription service, the horribly named Super Duolingo, that costs $6.99 per month and provides unlimited hearts (no need to start over lessons), no ads, and personalized reviews through the Practice Hub. But Duolingo Max is a new subscription tier above Super Duolingo that costs $30 per month (or $168 per year) and provides two new features, Explain My Answer and Roleplay.

Explain My Answer gives learners the chance to learn more about their correct and incorrect responses in lessons. They can enter a chat with Duo (the Duolingo mascot) and get simple explanations on why their answer was right or wrong, and they ask for more examples or clarification.

Roleplay lets learners practice real-world conversation skills with AI-based world characters in the app. These challenges earn XP (experience points) and live alongside the language completion path as optional side quests. “Learners might discuss future vacation plans with Lin, order coffee at a café in Paris, go furniture shopping with Eddy, or ask a friend to go for a hike,” the team suggests.

Duolingo Max is only available for English speakers learning Spanish or French on the iPhone right now. But the company says it will expand the service to additional languages and platforms soon.