Duolingo is launching 148 new language courses created by generating AI, the company announced Wednesday. The launch comes as Duolingo faces a rebound this week after sharing that it will replace contractors with AI and become a "AI-First" company.

The company said the launch of the new course doubled its current course and marked the largest content expansion in Duolingo's history.

"It took about 12 years to develop our first 100 courses, and now, in about a year, we are able to create and launch nearly 150 new courses," said Luis von Ahn, co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, in a press release. "This is a great example of how generative AI can benefit our learners directly. This release reflects the incredible impact of our investment in AI and automation, which allows us to scale at a speed and quality that has never been seen before."

The company noted that in the past, it usually took years to build a course on Duolingo. Now it is able to launch 148 courses in less than a year using generated AI and other tools.

While Duolingo is touting the use of AI, the company faces opposition from users who are frustrated with plans to use the technology to replace workers and use the technology more deeply in their applications.

Von Ahn told staff in an email on Monday that the company was moving to AI and that it would "gradually stop using contractors to do what AI can handle." He also wrote: “The number of people will be given only if the team cannot automate more work.”

“Al not only improves productivity,” he wrote. “This helps us get closer to our mission. To do a good job of teaching, we need to create a lot of content, and doing that manually doesn’t scale. One of the best decisions we have made recently is to replace someone without AI with a slow, manual content creation process powered by AI. Without AL. Without AL, we will take decades to expand our content to more learners. We owe our learners to get them to get this content.”

Users have entered social media and shared their dissatisfaction with the company’s plans, some of whom believe its use of AI makes the app’s app inaccurate and low-quality. Others deleted the app and encouraged others to follow suit.

As for the new language courses, Duolingo says they are primarily designed to support beginner level. They include stories, stories that help develop reading comprehension, and Duoradio that helps in listening comprehension. The company plans to launch more premium content in the coming months.