East Liberty-headquartered Duolingo unveiled several new features at its annual Duocon livestream.
The first major feature is "Video Call with Lily." Paid subscribers will be able to have a direct conversation with an artificial intelligence version of Lily, one of the company's mascots.
Principal Product Manager Zan Gilani discussed the mode during the conference. He said that learning to speak conversationally can be difficult and intimidating, even when people have spent significant time studying from vocabulary. The goal of the feature is to give users the ability to practice conversations to gain confidence to speak with a native speaker. Gilani said that the company chose Lily, who is designed to be apathetic, to make the experience feel more authentic.
"These calls are never going to be as scary as talking to native speakers but they are intentionally designed to be a little bit stressful," Gilani said. "Lily is going to be sarcastic, she's going to be sassy, she is going to interrupt you if you take too long to answer. As you do that over time, the fear, the anxiety, the hesitation, all of that is going to melt away."
For now, the feature will be exclusively available to Duolingo Max paid subscribers in English, Spanish and French. Max, one of two paid tiers, has helped the company grow to over 8 million paid subscribers, alongside record user engagement.
The other major feature is Adventures, which is a mini-game mode designed to help better immerse learners. While the app has always "gamified" the learning experience, Adventures takes it a step further, allowing users to explore dynamic digital environments, such as shops, the doctor's office or museums, and interact with Duolingo characters.
"Gamification is a huge part of what makes it so fun and easy to learn with us," senior learning designer Kate Barker said. "Game-like elements help [users] to return day after day, but what if [they] could go deeper?"
Both Adventures and Video Call with Lily were designed to provide users with more immersive feedback.
"You're not corrected, instead you're redirected, the way you might be in the real world if you say something wrong," Barker said. "Our characters aren't going to say 'you're wrong,' instead they'll say something like 'are you sure you meant that' or 'what are you talking about.' ... This keeps you in the scenario by more closely mimicking how folks respond to us."
The company also unveiled a new, physical product — a $249 piano produced by Loog. This three octave keyboard was designed to be used alongside the Music portion of Duolingo, which the company has pushed to expand since it launched in last year. CEO Luis von Ahn was joined by multiple time Grammy award-winning artist Jon Batiste to discuss the intersection of music and language.
"I think everybody should be musical, because I think music is such a joy," Batiste said. "I'm glad that we're here and I'm glad for your work, democratizing everything that you're doing for the people. It's important for learning."
The stream also dedicated time to discuss smaller additions, including a widespread rollout of licensed music, which had been announced earlier this year, progress made with Duolingo Math, which will now be available on Android, as well as the creation of an online leaderboard for language learners.
The company's continued digital expansion grows alongside its Pittsburgh presence, having tripled its office space in East Liberty earlier this year.
