Back office ops · Production

Duolingo achieves 5x ROI, saving 500+ hours monthly with Glean's AI-powered knowledge tools

The problem

Duolingo employees wasted time hunting for information scattered across Google Drive, Slack, Confluence, and Zendesk, and frequently had to ask colleagues or redo work that already existed elsewhere. An internally built search tool called Metasearch failed to solve it because it lacked advanced filtering and ranking.

First attempt

Duolingo's internally built Metasearch tool lacked advanced filtering and ranking and could not deliver fast, reliable results, leaving teams still spending too much time searching.

Workflow diagram · grounded in source
1
Employee seeks knowledge
trigger
“Duolingo employees struggled to find the knowledge they needed to do their best work”
2
Glean searches across tools
ai_action
“Glean connected to Duolingo's existing tools, making information instantly searchable across the company”
3
Glean Chat answers conversationally
ai_action
“Glean Chat was a game-changer. As a conversational AI assistant, it gave employees a faster way to get clear, personalized answers”
4
Instant answer delivered
output
“Find answers instantly — no more switching between apps or digging through outdated files”
5
Duplicate work prevented
feedback_loop
“Reduce duplicate work by surfacing relevant knowledge before teams started from scratch”
Reported outcome

With Glean, Duolingo saves 500+ hours every month — worth more than $1.1 million in yearly time savings — delivering a 5x return on investment from improved knowledge access.
Over 3,400 Glean agents were created in total.

Reported metrics
Yearly time savings>$1.1M
ROI from time saved using Glean5x
Hours saved monthly500+ hours monthly
Glean agents created within 6 weeks of launch500
Show all 5 reported metrics
yearly time savings>$1.1M
ROI from time saved using Glean5x
hours saved monthly500+ hours monthly
Glean agents created within 6 weeks of launch500
total Glean agents created3,400+
Reported stack
GleanGlean ChatGoogle DriveSlackConfluenceZendesk
Source
https://www.glean.com/resources/customer-stories/duolingo
Read source ↗

Frequently asked questions

What did this team achieve with this AI workflow?

With Glean, Duolingo saves 500+ hours every month — worth more than $1.1 million in yearly time savings — delivering a 5x return on investment from improved knowledge access.

What tools did this team use?

Glean, Glean Chat, Google Drive, Slack, Confluence, Zendesk.

What results were reported?

Yearly time savings: >$1.1M; ROI from time saved using Glean: 5x; Hours saved monthly: 500+ hours monthly; Glean agents created within 6 weeks of launch: 500 (source-reported, not independently verified).

What failed first in this deployment?

Duolingo's internally built Metasearch tool lacked advanced filtering and ranking and could not deliver fast, reliable results, leaving teams still spending too much time searching.

How is this back office ops AI workflow structured?

Employee seeks knowledge → Glean searches across tools → Glean Chat answers conversationally → Instant answer delivered → Duplicate work prevented.