• Duolingo's CEO said the company curbed 'edgy' social media posts after backlash over his AI memo.
• The backlash affected Duolingo's daily active user growth, hitting the lower forecast range.
• Duolingo reported 41% revenue growth and record profitability.

There's a reason Duolingo's meme-loving, sassy green owl has been blander lately.

Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn said the company has been playing it safe online after his post on mandatory AI usage received harsh social media backlash. The post outlined how Duolingo was going to mandate AI usage and use it as an indicator for hiring and performance review decisions.

"The most important thing is we wanted to make the sentiment on our social media positive," von Ahn said on the company's earnings call on Thursday. He added: "We still are not posting the extremely edgy things that are more likely to go viral."

The Duolingo CEO said that "stopping edgy posts" helped turn social media sentiment positive. But he said the move may also have hurt the company's daily active users in the quarter that ended in June.

Before the quarter, the company predicted 40% to 45% year-on-year growth in daily active users, an important metric for consumer tech companies. Von Ahn said Duolingo reported 40% growth — at the lower end of the range — because of the controlled social media engagement.

"The effect of that was essentially all in the United States, including Canada and stuff like that," he said. "This impact is in the past."

In an April memo to employees shared on LinkedIn, von Ahn outlined his plan to make the company "AI-first." He wrote that AI fluency would determine who is hired and promoted at the company, and that Duolingo would stop hiring contractors for the work AI can handle. Von Ahn added that the AI push won't replace full-time employees with the technology.

"We can't wait until the technology is 100% perfect," the CEO wrote in the memo. "We'd rather move with urgency and take occasional small hits on quality than move slowly and miss the moment."

But the memo received an unforgiving fallout: Users posted concerns on X, TikTok, and Reddit that the company would let AI take jobs and that AI slop would spam their favorite language learning app. Duolingo, which has cultivated a big social presence, wiped its social accounts for a period.

"What I've learned as a leader is just don't post on LinkedIn. I'm kidding," von Ahn said on Wednesday. "What people understood from my message, which is not the intention, is that we just wanted to fire all our employees, which is not what we did and not what we want to do."

He added that Duo's signature posts will be coming back soon.

"We have recovered sentiment, but we are not taking as many risks because honestly, we're skittish about it," von Ahn said on Wednesday. "Over the next few weeks, I don't know exactly how many weeks, weeks slash months, we're going to be recovering or posting more edgy things that are more likely to go viral."

For the second quarter, Duolingo reported a 41% revenue growth to $252.3 million and a record profitability of $44.8 million, growing 84% year over year.

Duolingo's stock jumped nearly 19% after hours on Wednesday. Shares are up 113% in the past year on continued user growth and AI implementation.

• Match Group's CEO said that he was very pleased with Hinge's performance.
• Hinge's success contrasts with a broader decline in the online dating industry.
• The company plans to apply Hinge's strategies to improve Tinder's performance.

Hinge may be a bright spot in the fizzling online dating industry.

On Tuesday's earnings call for Hinge and Tinder parent Match Group, CEO Spencer Rascoff said that Hinge is an example of what can be achieved with a motivated team and a great product.

"Simply put, Hinge is crushing it," Rascoff said. "Hinge's success should put to rest any doubts about whether the online dating category is out of favor among users."

Match's chief financial officer, Steven Bailey, said that Hinge generated $168 million in revenue in the second quarter, a 25% increase from the same time last year.

The dating app's paying users grew by 18% year over year to 1.7 million, and revenue per paying user grew 6% to nearly $32.

Rascoff added that the company is following Hinge's formula in its turnaround plans for Tinder. The company did not disclose as many numbers for Tinder as it did for Hinge, but said the app's revenue was down 4%, to $461 million.

"Hinge's success gives me pride in Hinge, but also confidence in Tinder," the CEO said. "At Hinge, everything ladders up to one north star: getting users on more great dates."

Rascoff said that Hinge was successful because it keeps "intentionality" at the core of a user's dating experience and was using AI to craft "thoughtful high-quality responses, helping spark better first impressions."

'Numbers game'

In a memo in March, Rascoff, who joined Match as CEO in February, said that Tinder and Hinge users feel that the company is too driven by metrics.

"Too often, our apps have felt like a numbers game rather than a place to build real connections," Rascoff wrote, adding that this needs to change.

"I've heard incredible stories of love," Rascoff said. "But I've also heard frustration from users searching for real, meaningful matches and expecting more from the experience."

Rascoff's overhaul of the platforms follows a broader sentiment shift away from online dating. Swiping fatigue and the rising costs of going on dates are leading many users to ditch apps for outlets that allow in-person connections.

Between May 2023 and the end of 2024, more than half a million users left Tinder, according to a report from the UK-based online behavior research group Ofcom.

That's showing up in dating apps' bottom lines.

Revenue for rival app Bumble decreased 6.5% to $201.8 million in the first quarter of the year. Bumble reports its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, August 6.

On Tuesday, Match reported $864 million in second-quarter revenue, unchanged from the same time last year. It reported a 5% drop in operating profit to $194 million.

Match's stock rose close to 7% after hours on Tuesday. The company is down 5.5% over the last year.

• "Pinterest is where Gen Z goes to shop," CEO Bill Ready said on Pinterest's Q1 earnings call.
• Gen Z has been "raised on an internet of visual content" and likes to search visually, he added.
• Pinterest reported that revenue rose 16% in Q1, sending stock up as much as 18% after hours.

Millennials had the mall. Gen Z has Pinterest.

On its first-quarter earnings call on Thursday, Pinterest's CEO, Bill Ready, said Gen Z users are engaging heavily with the image-sharing platform. Gen Z are those who were born between 1996 and 2010.

"We've made Pinterest a destination for our users, particularly a shopping destination," Ready said on the call. "Pinterest is where Gen Z goes to shop."

Ready said that a key driver of Pinterest's success is its ability to connect users to products and aesthetics "they may not have the words to describe."

"This is especially relevant for Gen Z, our largest and fastest-growing user cohort, who have been raised on an internet of visual content," and like to search visually, the CEO said.

Pinterest execs also touted Gen Z in examples of how advertisers are finding value on their platform.

Chief financial officer Julia Donnelly said advertisers valued Pinterest's insights into consumer behaviour, especially for Gen Z users who are making "significant" decisions such as selecting insurance or a credit card for the first time. The CEO highlighted PacSun, a clothing brand he said was popular with Gen Z, and said the retailer saw a higher return on ad spending with new Pinterest features.

The company's first-quarter revenue grew 16% to $855 million compared to the same period last year. Monthly average users, an important metric for media companies, grew 10% year-on-year.

AI also played a role in the company's strong quarter. Ready said Pinterest has been using AI to personalize user experience and to improve the platform's visual search capabilities.

"It also makes us a highly valuable partner to advertisers that are looking for early signals on how consumer trends may be shifting before it shows up in traditional purchasing data," he said of AI.

Pinterest stock jumped as much as 18% after-hours on Thursday on the heels of encouraging second-quarter guidance.

Pinterest, which is most popular for searching travel, style, and home decor ideas, saw a slowdown in user growth post-pandemic. It has since rebounded due to increased focus on shoppability and engagement from Gen Z users.

Gen Z, most of whom are in their 20s, has a reputation for taking their life and careers slow. Some research shows members of this generation are not drinking, driving, working, or taking risks as much as other age groups did at their age.

In addition to Pinterest, Gen Z is being credited for the revival of the image-blogging platform Tumblr, which reported that 50% of its active monthly users in 2025 are Gen Zers.

When it comes to their shopping habits, Gen Z is often associated with "underconsumption core," a trend that's all about buying less and rejecting influencer marketing.

Pinterest did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.