How Duolingo Partners with Decagon

Duolingo (NASDAQ: DUOL), the world’s largest and most popular language-learning platform, has transformed how people learn languages—making it accessible, engaging, and fun. Since its founding in 2011, Duolingo has grown to over 500 million users worldwide, with more than 8 million learners maintaining streaks of 365 days or longer. Its gamified approach—complete with streaks, leaderboards, and bite-sized lessons—has made mastering 40+ languages, from Spanish to Klingon, an enjoyable habit for millions.

Among Duolingo’s most impactful innovations is the Duolingo English Test (DET), a low-cost English proficiency test taken by over 500,000 individuals annually. For many, this exam is life-changing because it provides access to global education and career opportunities.

The founding of Duolingo English Test is rooted in CEO Luis von Ahn’s personal experience. While preparing for college, von Ahn faced an unexpected challenge: to meet English proficiency requirements, he had to leave his native Guatemala and travel to another country just to take the test.

Imagine having to hop on a plane just to take an English test. This experience exposed the inequities of traditional English proficiency exams, which demand significant time, money, and effort—barriers that often exclude students from underserved regions. It inspired the creation of the Duolingo English Test, the first fully online, remote English proficiency exam. With just a computer, an internet connection, and a quiet space, test-takers can complete the exam from anywhere, receiving results in just two days—far faster and more convenient than alternatives like TOEFL or IELTS.

Accessibility is central to DET’s mission. The test not only reduces costs but eliminates the need for physical testing centers, enabling students worldwide to pursue their goals with accessibility and ease.

As the DET scaled to serve a global audience, Duolingo faced increasing complexity in supporting its test-takers. Managing customer support for a high-stakes exam required efficiency, empathy, and accuracy on a massive scale. Enter Decagon, which enabled Duolingo to streamline operations and deliver a world-class support experience for its users.

Here’s how Decagon transformed the DET’s customer support operations.

The stakes are high for DET’s test-takers. Students often need their results quickly to meet academic deadlines, and any delays or issues can lead to significant stress. This urgency made delivering seamless, accurate customer support a top priority for the DET team.

Previously, DET worked with another AI vendor to handle email inquiries, deflecting about 30% of tickets. However, launching chat automation proved difficult. After a year of effort, the previous solution still wasn’t ready to support live chat, leaving agents to manually handle an overwhelming volume of inquiries.

Beyond functionality, the previous system demanded an enormous amount of manual effort to maintain. Anytime DET updated an FAQ article, the team had to manually refresh it in the vendor’s backend—a process made even more cumbersome by the inability to bulk update content.

In August, Duolingo began conversations with Decagon. In just one month, Decagon was live and handling chat inquiries with remarkable efficiency. The quick implementation was a smooth, stark contrast to the lengthy and manual onboarding process with the previous vendor.

With Decagon, DET immediately saw:

1. 80% Chat Deflection: Out the gates, Decagon was able to handle and fully resolve a majority of chat inquiries, dramatically reducing ticket volume.
2. Streamlined Knowledge Management: Decagon’s system automatically syncs FAQ updates every hour, eliminating manual refreshes.
3. Ease of User: From adding content snippets to QA’ing responses, Decagon’s backend tools were intuitive and required far less manual intervention and maintenance.

Ian Riggins, a Senior Operations Manager for DET, noted how Decagon’s user-friendly interface and proactive support reduced the team’s workload significantly. “With the previous vendor, at least half my week was dedicated to maintaining their system. With Decagon, it’s been a night-and-day difference.”

With a significantly reduced chat volume, agents can now focus on more complex inquiries, alleviating stress and improving the overall experience for both agents and customers.

Ian’s team is now focused on creating a scalable QA process to ensure ongoing accuracy and consistency in all customer interactions. In early 2025, DET plans to expand Decagon’s capabilities to include email support. Additionally, DET is exploring Decagon’s playbook functionality to further enhance automation and efficiency.

For Ian, the success of Decagon’s implementation is clear: “With this hugely reduced chat volume, it’s made it a lot easier on agents. The setup process was so smooth, and Decagon’s tools are so much easier to use. It’s been a game changer for our team.”

By streamlining DET’s customer support operations, Decagon enables Duolingo to focus on what matters most—providing 500,000 test-takers each year with a seamless, accessible, and stress-free experience. With Decagon’s AI-driven solutions, Duolingo ensures that every test-taker, no matter where they are in the world, receives the support they need to unlock opportunities in education and beyond.