Coursera vs Duolingo

Announcing Project Helix: A skills platform for the AI era

At Coursera and Udemy’s first global FWD customer event as a combined company, we previewed Project Helix, our new AI-native skills platform — along with new AI-powered capabilities across Coursera and Udemy.

Three AI Pioneers Argue for Keeping AI Open

At the Ai4 conference in Las Vegas, Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, and Andrew Ng debated AI openness and safety. All three argued broadly for preserving openness in AI, though they differed on tactics: Hinton warned that releasing model weights ('open-weight models') makes misuse easier and said the era of open weights is already established; Ng emphasized preventing gatekeepers and promoting multiple competing providers — warning of geopolitical consequences if low-cost models dominate; Li called for nuanced, layered openness and public-private collaboration. All three also said some regulation is necessary to steer AI development.

• Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, and Andrew Ng spoke at the Ai4 conference in Las Vegas advocating for keeping AI open.
• Hinton distinguished open-source code from open-weight models, warned open weights make it easier to misuse foundation models, and said 'the battle’s been lost' because open-weight models are now widespread.
• Andrew Ng argued for promoting openness to avoid gatekeepers, maintain multiple providers, and warned about geopolitical and market risks if low-cost models from other countries gain dominance.

Brawl Stars and Duolingo Launch Crossover Event

Supercell and Duolingo have launched a global crossover event featuring Brawl Stars' character Spike and Duolingo's mascot Duo. Running from September 19 to September 30, the event follows playful social media rivalry. In Brawl Stars, Duo becomes a boss in a new 20v1 game mode, while Spike appears in Duolingo as part of a limited-time Quest. Completing Duolingo challenges unlocks Spike in Brawl Stars, encouraging cross-platform engagement with exclusive rewards and community events. This partnership highlights the trend of cross-promotional marketing between mobile games and consumer apps. AppMagic estimates Duolingo has generated $2.62 billion in lifetime IAP revenue, while Brawl Stars has earned $2.42 billion. Duolingo previously ran crossovers with Genshin Impact and Angry Birds.

• Supercell and Duolingo announced a crossover between Brawl Stars and Duolingo, running from September 19-30.
• Duo becomes a boss in a new 20v1 Brawl Stars game mode, while Spike appears in Duolingo as a limited-time Quest.
• Completing Duolingo challenges unlocks Spike in Brawl Stars, encouraging cross-platform engagement.

Eight Emerging Voice AI User Interface Patterns Mapped

This article maps eight emerging Voice AI user interface patterns across consumer and enterprise voice products, analyzing the perceived role of the AI agent in each, key design decisions, and limitations. The patterns include avatar video calls, turn-by-turn interactions, AI phone calls, voice-augmented chat, voice-to-text dictation, scripted video with voice gating, co-pilot transcripts, and ambient wake-word assistants. The author examines products like Duolingo, MasterClass, Tolan, HireVue, Final Round AI, Vapi, ChatGPT, Claude, Wispr Flow, Speak, Teuida, Granola, Otter, Fireflies, and Gong. The piece highlights the shift from intent-matching to conversation design, emphasizing the importance of agent persona, interaction mechanics, and the balance between full-screen and inline voice modalities.

• The article outlines eight Voice AI UI patterns: avatar video call, turn-by-turn, AI phone call, voice-augmented chat, voice-to-text, scripted video + voice, co-pilot transcript, and ambient wake-word.
• Products mentioned include Duolingo, MasterClass, Tolan, Replika, HireVue, Final Round AI, Supernova, Ringg AI, Retell, Vapi, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini Live, Wispr Flow, Spokenly, Speak, Teuida, Granola, Otter, Fireflies, and Gong.
• Vapi reports that outbound conversion improved from 14% to 22% after rewriting an agent to sound like a colleague.

Duolingo launches fashion line for hard-to-pronounce brands

Duolingo is launching a marketing campaign timed to New York Fashion Week, featuring a capsule collection called 'The Phonetic Collection.' The collection includes wearable items with phonetic spellings of fashion brand names, such as a purse spelling 'air-mess' for Hermés and a jacket reading 'zhee-vahn-shee' for Givenchy. Designer Megan O'Cain created the pieces. An out-of-home campaign will run in New York City, and a pop-up event will be held at Null Object. Duolingo's CMO, Manu Orssaud, said the campaign aims to engage the audience by connecting language learning to fashion. A survey with YouGov found that while 62% of Americans are confident they can pronounce Hermés, only 15% actually know the correct pronunciation. The collection launches on September 8, 2026.

• Duolingo launched 'The Phonetic Collection' on Sept. 8, 2026, tied to NYFW.
• Campaign includes out-of-home ads in NYC and a pop-up at Null Object.
• Designer Megan O'Cain created the wearable pieces.