All that backlash against Duolingo going ‘AI-first’ didn’t slow its growth: Why DUOL stock is soaring 24% right now

At least one company’s bet on AI appears to be paying off—for now.

Language-learning platform Duolingo reported earnings results for the second quarter of 2025 on Wednesday after the market closed, and the numbers were eye-opening. The company’s revenue increased 41% year-over-year to more than $252.3 million, and net income tallied $44.8 million, up 84%. Its number of paid subscribers was up to 10.9 million from 8 million a year ago, and its daily active users neared 48 million, up from 34 million last year.

“I’m happy to report another quarter of great results, driven by product-led growth, a delightful learning experience, and fast iteration,” wrote Luis von Ahn, Duolingo’s co-founder and CEO, in a letter to shareholders. “Our user growth and engagement remain strong, and our subscription performance and profitability exceeded expectations.”

Von Ahn also thinks there’s plenty of room to grow ahead, too, especially as AI is helping boost user engagement and profitability.

“We believe we’re still early in our user growth journey,” he continued. “We’ve delivered innovation while growing profitability—through strong performance across all subscription tiers, continued investment in our core product, and new subjects that help us increase engagement. We remain focused on building for long-term engagement and growth.”

The blowout quarter, notably, comes after Duolingo was among the first large companies to publicly lean into AI—specifically, replacing swaths of its human workforce with AI. For a while, it appeared that the strategy was backfiring, but now, that’s not so clear.

Investors seem happy, as the price of Duolingo shares shot up significantly after hours. As of the closing bell at 4 p.m. ET, Duolingo stock was trading for less than $344 per share—but as of 4:10 p.m. ET, shares were trading for $426.60. That’s an increase of more than 24%.

Duolingo’s shares had been on a downward slide, too, in recent weeks. Over the past month, the stock was down more than 13%, although it’s more than doubled over the past calendar year.