Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL) 2026 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Duolingo's first-quarter 2026 earnings webcast. Today after market closed, we released this quarter's shareholder letter, a copy of which you can find on our IR website at investor.duolingo.com.

各位晚安，歡迎收看 Duolingo 2026 年第一季財報網路直播。今天收盤後，我們發布了本季的股東信，您可在我們的投資人關係網站 investor.duolingo.com 上找到副本。

On today's call, we have Luis von Ahn, our Co-Founder and CEO; and Gillian Munson, our CFO. They'll begin with prepared remarks before we open the call for questions. (Operator Instructions). Please note this call is being recorded and all participants are currently in listen-only mode.

今天的電話會議由我們的共同創辦人暨執行長 Luis von Ahn，以及財務長 Gillian Munson 出席。他們將先發表準備好的談話，之後我們會開放提問。(接線員指示)。請注意，本次電話會議將被錄音，且所有與會者目前皆處於僅收聽模式。

Before we begin, please note we'll make some forward-looking statements regarding future events and financial performance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties described in our SEC filings and are based on our assumptions we believe to be reasonable as of today. We undertake no obligation to update them.

在開始之前，請注意我們將就未來事件與財務表現發表若干前瞻性陳述。這些陳述受我們向 SEC 提交文件中所述之風險與不確定性影響，並基於我們截至今日認為合理的假設。我們不承擔更新這些陳述的義務。

We'll also discuss both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations between the two can be found in our earnings materials, and we encourage you to review them when evaluating our performance.

我們也將討論 GAAP 與非 GAAP 的財務衡量指標。兩者之間的調節表可在我們的財報資料中找到，我們鼓勵您在評估我們的表現時一併查閱。

And now I will turn it over to Luis.

接下來我把時間交給 Luis。

Thanks, Debbie, and thank you all for joining. Q1 was about execution. We said we were going to prioritize teaching better and changes in the growing users, and that's exactly what we did. DAUs grew 21% year over year, right in line with what we expected as we make this strategic shift. I want to spend a few minutes on what we shipped this quarter related to language learning because teaching better is the foundation of everything we're building toward.

謝謝 Debbie，也感謝各位參與。第一季的重點在於執行。我們說過要優先把教學做得更好，並調整使用者成長方面的作法，而我們確實就是這麼做的。日活躍使用者（DAU）年增 21%，與我們在進行這項策略轉向時的預期一致。我想花幾分鐘談談本季我們在語言學習相關推出了哪些內容，因為「教得更好」是我們所有建設方向的基礎。

Speaking practice has historically been the hardest thing to do well on a mobile app. This quarter, we made it a bigger part of the experience for free users and paid subscribers. We introduced spoken tokens, which let learners speak their answers to almost any exercise.

口說練習歷來是在行動 App 上最難做好的部分。本季我們讓它在免費使用者與付費訂閱者的體驗中占比更高。我們推出了「口說代幣」（spoken tokens），讓學習者幾乎可以在任何練習中用說的方式回答。

We started rolling out Speaking Adventures, which put learners in real-world conversational scenarios and we launched Flash Cards, which help learners build fast recall by saying words aloud. And for our paid subscribers, video call keeps getting better. Over the past year, we've more than doubled the average number of words spoken per user in that feature.

我們開始逐步推出「口說冒險」（Speaking Adventures），讓學習者置身於真實世界的對話情境；同時我們也推出了「單字卡」（Flash Cards），透過大聲說出單字來幫助學習者建立快速回想能力。而對於付費訂閱者，視訊通話功能也持續變得更好。在過去一年中，該功能下每位使用者平均說出的單字數已超過翻倍。

We also reached a major milestone on content. We now offer courses up to professional proficiency, which is B2 on the CFR scale across all our nine most learned languages and we got there fast. In Q1 alone, we published 20,500 course units. To put that in context, that's more than 10 times what we were shipping per quarter just two years ago.

我們在內容方面也達成了一個重要里程碑。我們現在在九個最常被學習的語言中，皆提供最高可達專業熟練度的課程，也就是 CEFR（歐洲共同語言參考架構）等級的 B2，而且我們達成得很快。僅在第一季，我們就發布了 20,500 個課程單元。作為對照，這比兩年前我們每季推出的量多出 10 倍以上。

AI has fundamentally changed what's possible for us, and I believe we're just scratching the surface. The product is better than it has ever been, and I couldn't be more excited about what's ahead.

AI 從根本上改變了我們所能做到的事，我相信我們才剛開始探索。產品比以往任何時候都更好，我對接下來的發展感到無比興奮。

And with that, I'll turn it over to Gillian.

接下來我把時間交給 Gillian。

Thank you, Luis. Q1 was a solid quarter. We achieved double-digit growth in both bookings and revenue, expanded gross margin and delivered adjusted EBITDA of $83 million, which is about 29% of our revenue.

謝謝你，Luis。第一季表現穩健。我們在預訂額（bookings）與營收兩方面都達成雙位數成長，毛利率擴張，並交出 8,300 萬美元的調整後 EBITDA，約占我們營收的 29%。

As you consider 2026, it's worth reiterating how we are thinking about the year. We are investing deliberately to set us up to be a larger, more durable, long-term business. This means that for this year, we are managing the business towards the targets that we shared on the fourth quarter call. Specifically, 10% to 12% bookings growth, 15% to 18% revenue growth and an adjusted EBITDA margin of about 25%.

在您思考 2026 年時，值得再次強調我們對今年的看法。我們正以審慎且有意識的方式投資，讓我們能成為規模更大、更具韌性、且可長期經營的企業。這表示在今年，我們將依照第四季電話會議中分享的目標來管理公司。具體而言，預訂額成長 10% 至 12%、營收成長 15% 至 18%，以及調整後 EBITDA 利潤率約 25%。

To help with your modeling, we have provided point estimates for the full-year 2026 and based on what we can see today, consistent with those ranges. These are bookings growth of roughly 10.5% and revenue growth of roughly 16.1% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 25.7%.

為協助各位建模，我們提供了 2026 全年的點估計（point estimates），就我們目前所見，與上述區間一致。預訂額成長約 10.5%、營收成長約 16.1%，以及調整後 EBITDA 利潤率 25.7%。

A few things we want to make sure are on your radar as you build out your models on bookings. Our expected Q2 bookings growth of about 6% reflects a tough comp. The prior-year quarter included the initial rollout of Energy, a price increase on our most popular subscription plan and exceptional advertising performance.

在您建立預訂額模型時，有幾點我們希望您特別留意。我們預期第二季預訂額成長約 6%，反映了較具挑戰的比較基期。去年同期包含 Energy 的初期推出、我們最受歡迎訂閱方案的漲價，以及極為亮眼的廣告表現。

We do expect bookings growth to accelerate through the second half with about 3 points of acceleration in Q3 and a further rise in Q4. We expect about 17% growth in Q2 for revenue after which we expect growth to step down in Q3 before stabilizing in Q4.

我們確實預期預訂額成長將在下半年加速，第三季約加速 3 個百分點，第四季再進一步上升。營收方面，我們預期第二季成長約 17%，之後第三季成長將下滑，並在第四季趨於穩定。

For gross margin, we expect it to be approximately 71% in Q2, after which it will trend down to roughly 69% by the end of the year as AI-powered feature use in our product expands. Adjusted EBITDA margin in Q2 should be roughly 24%. We expect Q3 adjusted EBITDA margin to be flat to slightly down from Q2 before approaching 27% in Q4.

毛利率方面，我們預期第二季約為 71%，之後隨著產品中 AI 驅動功能的使用擴大，將一路走低至年底約 69%。第二季調整後 EBITDA 利潤率應約為 24%。我們預期第三季調整後 EBITDA 利潤率與第二季持平或略降，之後在第四季接近 27%。

That's a lot to digest. But the overall message is that 2026 is a key strategic investment year for us, and it is playing out as we expected so far, as demonstrated by the point estimates for our financials that we have shared. We entered Q2 with over $1 billion in cash, no debt and expect to generate over $350 million in free cash flow this year. We plan to continue executing on our buyback authorization under which repurchases to date are 514,000 shares or about 1% of our fully diluted shares outstanding.

資訊量很大。但整體訊息是：2026 年對我們而言是關鍵的策略投資年，而且截至目前的進展符合我們的預期，這也反映在我們所分享的財務點估計上。我們在進入第二季時，現金超過 10 億美元、沒有負債，並預期今年將產生超過 3.5 億美元的自由現金流。我們計畫持續執行股票回購授權；截至目前已回購 514,000 股，約占完全稀釋後流通在外股數的 1%。

2026 is a big year for Duolingo. And I am very excited about what we are building.

2026 年對 Duolingo 來說是重要的一年。我也非常期待我們正在打造的一切。

And now I'll turn it back to the operator, and we can take your questions.

接下來我把時間交還給接線員，我們可以開始回答各位的問題。

(Operator Instructions) Wyatt Swanson, D.A. Davidson.

(接線員指示) Wyatt Swanson，D.A. Davidson。

Awesome. Could you talk to some of the different drivers of DAU growth this quarter and maybe entering 2Q? Just talk to like whether it's performance marketing, word of mouth maybe starting to return or something else? And could you maybe also talk to what regions you're seeing, any particular strength or weakness?

太好了。能否談談本季 DAU 成長的幾個不同驅動因素，以及可能進入第二季的情況？例如是否來自成效型行銷（performance marketing）、口碑是否開始回升，或是其他因素？另外也能否談談你們看到哪些地區表現較強或較弱？

Yeah. Thanks for the question. So DAU growth, this is very important to us. Of course, this is the most important thing we're trying to do this year.

好的。謝謝你的提問。DAU 成長對我們非常重要。當然，這也是我們今年最重要的努力方向。

We're growing in every single region as we have been for several years. But of course, some regions are growing faster than others. Asia, in particular, is the fastest-growing region. And in terms of the growth drivers they remain pretty similar.

我們在每一個地區都持續成長，這幾年來一直如此。但當然，有些地區的成長速度比其他地區更快。其中亞洲是成長最快的地區。至於成長驅動因素，整體而言仍然相當類似。

I mean, word of mouth has historically been the main growth driver for us. Most of our users come to Duolingo through word of mouth. We have some amount of marketing -- some amount of performance marketing that we're doing. We've increased that budget a little bit, but it's not massive when compared to other apps our size. But generally, I think it's been pretty similar to the growth drivers.

我的意思是，口碑歷來一直是我們最主要的成長驅動力。我們的大多數用戶都是透過口碑來到 Duolingo。我們確實有做一些行銷——也有做一些成效型行銷。我們把那個預算稍微提高了一點，但跟其他同等規模的 App 相比並不算大。但整體而言，我認為成長驅動因素一直都相當類似。

And the last thing that I'll say is, historically, the other place where DAU increases is just a lot of increases in retention to the product, and that's basically the work of just making the product stickier. And that has gone really well. We've been making a lot of changes to the product, some of which are small, some of which are larger that just make retention higher. The way you would see that is just an increase in our DAU to MAU ratio, which keeps increasing pretty much every quarter, and it increased again this quarter.

我最後想補充的是，歷來 DAU 增加的另一個來源，就是產品留存率的大幅提升，而這基本上就是讓產品更「黏」的工作。而這方面進展得非常順利。我們對產品做了很多改動，有些是小改，有些是較大的改動，目的都是提高留存。你會看到的方式就是我們的 DAU 對 MAU 比率上升，幾乎每一季都在提高，而這一季也再次上升。

Perfect. And then one quick follow-up. Can you maybe provide some color on how you expect DAU growth to look in 2Q and whether 20% is still the right way to think about DAU growth going 2026?

太好了。接著一個簡短的追問。你能否再多提供一些說明，談談你預期 2Q 的 DAU 成長會是什麼樣子，以及展望 2026 年時，是否仍然可以用 20% 來看待 DAU 成長？

Yeah. Everything we said in the last call remains. I mean, we expect that it's going to stay at around 20% throughout the year. Now there will be some slight ups and downs depending on the comps from last year, et cetera. But it's around 20% for the rest of the year. So nothing has changed from the last time we spoke.

可以。我們在上一次電話會議所說的一切都維持不變。我的意思是，我們預期全年都會維持在大約 20% 左右。當然，會因為去年同期比較基期等因素而有些微上下波動。但今年剩下的時間大概就是 20% 左右。所以跟上次我們談的相比，沒有任何改變。

Ross Sandler, Barclays.

Ross Sandler，Barclays。

Okay. Luis, you had mentioned a couple of interesting things, 90 days back, as kind of part of the plan this year. One was to kind of like revitalize some of the engagement in the free tier, kind of like high-engaging free tier. That top 20% of the free tier. So curious to hear any update on that effort.

好的。Luis，你在大約 90 天前提到幾件很有意思的事情，算是今年計畫的一部分。其中一個是要重新活化免費層的部分互動，算是高互動的免費層。也就是免費層中互動度最高的前 20%。所以想聽聽這項工作的最新進展。

And then you also had mentioned that you wanted to kind of like get inspiration from some of the big like mobile gaming companies out there in terms of new things that you could potentially bring into Duolingo. So yeah, curious just to hear what you've learned in any new strategies on that front?

另外你也提到，你想從一些大型的手機遊戲公司那邊取得靈感，看看有哪些新東西可能帶進 Duolingo。所以也想請你分享一下，你學到了什麼，以及在這方面是否有任何新的策略？

Yeah. Thanks for the question. Okay. So in terms of the free tier, I mean, we've done a few things. We basically made it so that the free tier is better than it was two months ago. Of course, some of these changes take time. It's only been two months since the last earnings call.

好的。謝謝你的問題。好。就免費層而言，我們確實做了幾件事。基本上我們讓免費層比兩個月前更好。當然，其中一些改動需要時間發酵。距離上一次財報電話會議也才兩個月。

So it's not like we've done 1,000 changes. But we have made the free tier better. There's just more things that are available to free users. And we're very happy with that. We think that over time, that's going to really increase word of mouth.

所以不可能說我們做了 1,000 項改動。但我們確實讓免費層變得更好。免費用戶可使用的內容更多了。我們對此非常滿意。我們認為隨著時間推進，這將大幅提升口碑。

In terms of getting inspiration from mobile games, we've always gotten a lot of inspiration from mobile games. And the idea -- ultimately, what we're trying to do with Duolingo was make a thing that is as good at teaching as a one-on-one human tutor, but it's also as fun as a mobile game. That's what we're trying to do.

至於從手機遊戲取得靈感，我們一直以來都從手機遊戲獲得很多靈感。而這個想法——最終我們想用 Duolingo 做到的是，打造一個教學效果能媲美一對一真人家教，但同時又像手機遊戲一樣好玩的產品。這就是我們努力的方向。

And we keep doing that. I mean, if you look over the last quarter, some of the things that we've worked on, very soon, you'll see really cool Avatar costumes that's directly coming from mobile games. I think users are going to love that. We're doing a number of changes in terms of how we show rewards to users. I mean, for example, we're showing them as cards now, and that feels really collectible. So we're doing things like that.

而我們也持續在做這件事。如果你回顧上一季，我們做的一些事情，很快你就會看到很酷的 Avatar 服裝造型，這是直接從手機遊戲的做法汲取而來。我想用戶會很喜歡。我們也在用戶獎勵呈現方式上做了不少改動。例如，我們現在把獎勵以卡片的形式呈現，感覺就很有收藏性。所以我們正在做這類事情。

Another thing that is not exactly for mobile game, but that is important and it is also important for -- to mention for the free tier. One of the things that we mentioned last time is that we want to work on monetization tactics that are not at odds with a free tier. And we have been finding some really good ones this quarter and one of them that is good is longer free trials.

另外一件事不完全是手機遊戲的概念，但很重要，也值得一提，尤其是對免費層而言。我們上次提到的一點是，我們希望推動一些不會與免費層相互衝突的變現策略。而這一季我們找到了一些非常不錯的方法，其中一個就是更長的免費試用期。

Historically, Duolingo has given a seven-day free trial, and that has worked well for us. We're finding that giving longer free trials is really good in that not only does it give us more bookings, that's good, but also, it's good for the user. It's not -- they feel good. They like, oh, I have one month free, for example. So that's something else that we're finding that we're pretty happy with.

過去 Duolingo 提供的是 7 天免費試用，而且對我們來說效果很好。我們發現提供更長的免費試用期非常有幫助：不僅能帶來更多預訂（bookings），這當然很好，同時對用戶也更好。這不是——他們感受很好。例如他們會覺得，喔，我有一個月免費。所以這也是我們目前發現、並且相當滿意的一件事。

Andrew Boone, Citizens JMP.

Andrew Boone，Citizens JMP。

I would love to talk about MAU growth and top of funnel at large. Can you just help us understand the deceleration there? I understood the comp and everything from last year. But how do we start to think about what has been the deceleration there and whether that needs to accelerate to support down growth?

我很想談談 MAU 成長以及整體漏斗頂端（top of funnel）。你能否幫我們理解那邊的減速情況？我理解去年同期比較基期等因素。但我們該如何開始思考那邊減速的原因，以及是否需要重新加速，才能支撐後端的成長？

Yeah. I mean, so in terms of growth, the main thing we work on here is daily active user growth. That's the main thing we have worked on for the longest of time. And monthly active user growth, there's just no team that's looking at that, and we do report it, but it's just not a team that's looking at that.

好的。就成長而言，我們在這裡主要關注的是每日活躍用戶（DAU）成長。這是我們長期以來最主要在做的事情。至於每月活躍用戶（MAU）成長，坦白說沒有一個團隊專門盯這個；我們確實會揭露這個數字，但並沒有團隊以此為主要目標。

Now related to MAU growth is top of funnel and that we do work on. We're -- the reality is that top of funnel has been about flat for -- certainly for this quarter, and we would like to accelerate it, and we're working on that. There's a lot of stuff with marketing that I think will be really good, particularly in underpenetrated regions. I think that's one thing.

不過，與 MAU 成長相關的是漏斗頂端（top of funnel），而這部分我們確實有在做。現實是，漏斗頂端在——至少在本季——大致持平；我們希望能讓它加速，也正在努力。我認為行銷方面有很多事情會很有幫助，特別是在滲透率仍偏低的地區。我想這是一點。

And then the other one is just making changes to the product to make it teach better and be better for free users, that should accelerate word of mouth. Again, the main thing that has been responsible for our top of funnel historically has been word of mouth. And word of mouth is this interesting thing that is beautiful because it's free, but we don't have that much control over it in terms of being able to measure it the same way that we can measure retention.

另一點就是持續改進產品，讓它教得更好、對免費用戶更友善，這應該會加速口碑擴散。再次強調，歷來對我們漏斗頂端貢獻最大的就是口碑。而口碑是一個很有意思的東西：它很美好，因為是免費的，但我們對它的掌控度不高，尤其在衡量上，無法像衡量留存那樣精準。

So we're doing things that we think are going to be really good for order mouth, but we don't have the granularity of control that we have for things like retention.

所以我們正在做一些我們認為對口碑（order mouth）會非常有幫助的事情，但我們沒有像在留存等方面那樣細緻的控制粒度。

And then, Luis, just a strategic question in terms of keeping users on platform, right? You guys have always focused on fun. It seems to me that there's a change as we think about more of a voice front experience. Just talking about keeping the entertainment value and what has to change as you guys do think about and moving towards more of a voice-like experience.

然後，Luis，從讓使用者留在平台上的策略角度來問一個問題，對吧？你們一直以來都專注在「好玩」。在我看來，當我們思考更多以語音為前端的體驗時，似乎出現了一些變化。想請你談談在你們朝更「語音化」的體驗前進時，如何維持娛樂價值，以及有哪些必須改變的地方。

I don't -- I understand why you say that you may perceive a change. But internally, there's no change in terms of fun. I mean we are humongous believers that the hardest thing about learning something by ourself is staying motivated. Like we have to -- this really is the secret sauce of Duolingo and what has gotten us so far is that we know that we have to motivate our users to learn something. Because there's a very big difference between what people say and what people do. People may say, want to learn something, but ultimately, they'll do what's most fun. So we spend a lot of effort trying to make it fun.

我不——我理解你為什麼會覺得你可能感受到了一些改變。但在內部，就「好玩」這件事而言沒有改變。我的意思是，我們非常相信：自學一件事最難的地方就是保持動力。就像我們必須——這真的是 Duolingo 的祕密武器，也是讓我們走到今天的原因：我們知道必須激勵使用者去學習。因為人們說的和做的之間有很大的差距。人們可能會說想學某樣東西，但最後他們會去做最有趣的事。所以我們投入很多心力讓它變得好玩。

We think that making voice and speaking be more prominent in the app does not decrease fun. And in fact, our metrics suggest that it does not. It can be a pretty fun experience. So we're going to continue doing that.

我們認為讓語音與口說在 App 裡更突出，並不會降低好玩程度。事實上，我們的指標顯示並沒有。它可以是一個相當有趣的體驗。所以我們會繼續這麼做。

Now one thing that is important to understand about fun, all the things that get shown on the screen, our beautiful animations, et cetera, it just turns out that humans are very visual creatures. So you will see us continue having a lot of very beautiful animations and kind of more game-like things even though there's voice in there. You're just still going to see all the graphics and everything that -- to keep Duolingo as fun as possible.

另外，關於「好玩」有一點很重要：所有顯示在螢幕上的東西、我們漂亮的動畫等等，結果就是人類是非常視覺導向的生物。所以即使加入了語音，你仍會看到我們持續提供很多非常精美的動畫，以及更偏遊戲化的元素。你仍然會看到所有圖像與各種視覺內容——以盡可能讓 Duolingo 保持好玩。

But yeah, we're -- our team's dedicated to making the app more fun are really firing in all cylinders. And you'll see a bunch of stuff -- really in the next couple of days, for example, you'll see this really awesome feature, which is Avatar costumes. I think that it's a lot of fun. My favorite one, I dress up -- if you look at my account on Duolingo, I don't know if you can see it yet, but I'm just up as a hotdog, and I love it.

不過是的，我們——我們團隊在讓 App 更好玩這件事上真的火力全開。你會看到一堆新東西——例如就在接下來幾天，你會看到一個超棒的功能：Avatar 服裝。我覺得非常好玩。我最喜歡的一套是——如果你去看我在 Duolingo 的帳號，我不知道你現在看不看得到，但我把自己打扮成一根熱狗，我超愛。

Eric Sheridan, Goldman.

Eric Sheridan，高盛。

Great to see everybody. Maybe [porter] if I can. At least for you, what have been the key lessons so far in terms of scaling AI, both in terms of the user experience as well as the scale of content for the platform over the last couple of months.

很高興見到大家。也許我可以問一下，[porter]？至少就你而言，過去幾個月在擴展 AI 的過程中，無論是使用者體驗端，還是平台內容規模端，到目前為止有哪些關鍵的經驗教訓？

And Gillian, as AI scales on both sides of that equation, how should we think about what that means for margins longer?

另外 Gillian，當 AI 在這個等式的兩端都擴展時，我們應該如何思考這對較長期的利潤率意味著什麼？

Yes, great question. I mean we're very excited about AI. In general, if you go to the highest level, what we're trying to do here is we're trying to make a thing that is as good as a teaching as a one-on-one human tutor and as fun as a mobile game.

是的，這是個好問題。我的意思是，我們對 AI 非常興奮。整體來看，如果拉到最高層次，我們在這裡想做的是：打造一個教學效果能媲美一對一真人家教、同時又像手機遊戲一樣好玩的產品。

The teaching part, AI is what's going to get us there. We are really doing, for example, like we said, our video call feature, the practices conversation has gotten significantly better over the last year. The conversations are way more fluid, and that's making it so that users are basically saying twice as many words on average as they were a year ago. So that's a pretty major improvement.

在教學這一塊，AI 會帶我們達成目標。例如我們正在做的——就像我們說過的——視訊通話功能，練習對話在過去一年已經顯著變好。對話流暢度高很多，這讓使用者平均說出的字詞數量，基本上是去年的兩倍。所以這是相當重大的提升。

Similarly, like you mentioned, content, what -- the amount of content that we were able to put out, learning content that we were able to put out in the last quarter has dwarfed basically everything that we've ever done in the past. We put out 20,500 units of content. And that's in one quarter, and that's more that we were putting out like in an entire -- that's about what we put out the entire year last year. And by the way, last year, we were already using AI. So we're just getting better and better at using it.

同樣地，就像你提到的內容面，我們在上一季能推出的學習內容量，幾乎碾壓了我們過去做過的一切。我們推出了 20,500 個內容單元。而且這是在單一季度完成的，這比我們——大概相當於去年一整年推出的量。順帶一提，去年我們就已經在使用 AI 了。所以我們只是越來越擅長使用它。

And the other thing that I think we're working on a lot of things, for example, models really picking what exercise to give to you. We've always had a model that picks what exercise to give to each user, but we're working on significantly more personalization. Because that's exactly what a one-on-one human tutor does. It basically personalizes very close to you. So we're very excited about that.

另外一點是，我們也在做很多事情，例如用模型來更好地挑選要給你做哪個練習。我們一直都有一個模型會為每位使用者挑選練習，但我們正在做顯著更高程度的個人化。因為這正是一對一真人家教會做的事。它基本上會非常貼近你地進行個人化。所以我們對此非常興奮。

And then from a cost perspective, I think there's two things to think about. One, the adoption of AI, both in terms of customer-facing, and you'll see our gross margin guidance has us landing at about 69% in the fourth quarter and that assumes we're going to put a lot more of that ingredient in our product.

然後從成本角度來看，我覺得有兩件事要思考。第一，AI 的採用，不論是在面向客戶的部分——你會看到我們的毛利率指引在第四季落在約 69%，而這假設我們會在產品中加入更多這個要素。

And then our operating expenses, we have -- we started to see some pretty big increases in AI costs internally, and our guidance would reflect that. But -- so we are increasing everywhere. But there's another thing going on. There are always these waves of efficiency that come with AI. So you might have AI costs come up and then the team optimizes and then you move forward.

第二是營業費用。我們——我們開始看到內部 AI 成本出現相當大的增加，而我們的指引也反映了這點。但是——所以我們各方面都在增加。不過還有另一件事正在發生。AI 總是會帶來一波又一波的效率提升。所以你可能會先看到 AI 成本上升，接著團隊進行優化，然後再往前推進。

So if you look, for example, at the Q1 gross margin, it was better than we would have expected and pretty good on a year-over-year basis. And yet there's still a lot of new AI content in our product. And that's because, on a per unit basis, the costs have come down a lot.

所以例如你看第一季的毛利率，它比我們預期的更好，而且年對年表現也相當不錯。但同時，我們的產品裡仍然有很多新的 AI 內容。這是因為以單位成本來看，成本已經下降了很多。

So it goes in sort of these waves. The costs come down, we adopt more, and we manage that. But I think as you think about the overall margins, I would expect us to be in that 69% range. on the gross margin and then we'll manage the operating expenses accordingly.

所以它會以這種波浪式的方式進行。成本下降，我們採用更多，並且加以管理。但我認為，若你從整體利潤率來看，我預期我們的毛利率會在 69% 左右，然後我們會相應地管理營業費用。

Bryan Smilek, JPMorgan.

Bryan Smilek，摩根大通。

Luis, just going back to last earnings as well. Obviously, very good to see just overall voice being infused across the ecosystem. Can you just discuss the impact on Max overall, like are you seeing mat subscribers cross-trade down to Super? Or how should we think about the product market, go-to-market approach on Max now that AI is becoming more, not commoditized, but more available across the broader ecosystem?

Luis，我回到上一季財報的話題。顯然，很高興看到語音功能在整個生態系中被全面導入。你能談談這對 Max 整體的影響嗎？例如你是否看到 Max 訂閱者向下轉換到 Super？或者，當 AI 變得更——不是商品化，但在更廣泛的生態系中更容易取得——我們現在應該如何看待 Max 的產品定位、以及 go-to-market（上市/推廣）策略？

Yeah. Thanks for that question because it helps us clarify. So what we said last time was that we wanted to add video call to our medium-tier Super, Super Duolingo. It's important for us to do that because video call is such a good feature in terms of teaching, and we just want significantly more people to have access to it because if they do, they'll learn better, they'll tell their friends, et cetera. So we really believe this is the right thing to do.

是的。謝謝你這個問題，因為它有助於我們釐清。所以我們上次說的是，我們想把視訊通話加入到我們的中階方案 Super，也就是 Super Duolingo。這對我們很重要，因為就教學而言，視訊通話是一個非常好的功能；而我們只是希望有顯著更多的人能使用它，因為如果他們能用，他們會學得更好、會告訴朋友，等等。所以我們真的相信這是正確的事。

We started doing that. So at the moment, we have a number of experiments giving video call to Super subscribers, particularly to new users, new Super subscribers are getting video call. We have not scaled this to all our existing user base, et cetera. So at the moment, there's no change for Max. I don't know what's going to happen with Max.

我們已經開始這麼做了。所以目前我們做了多項實驗，把視訊通話提供給 Super 訂閱者，特別是新用戶；新的 Super 訂閱者正在獲得視訊通話。我們還沒有把這擴大到所有既有用戶群等等。所以目前 Max 沒有變化。我不知道 Max 之後會怎麼發展。

There's a lot of possibilities, and it remains -- again, there's just only been two months since we last spoke. So we just haven't run all the different experiments, but there's some possibilities of what it could be. It could be that we lowered the price of Max. It could be that we do something where we give Max subscribers unlimited video call versus a prescriber is not unlimited.

可能性很多，而且仍然——再說一次，距離我們上次談話也才兩個月。所以我們還沒有跑完所有不同的實驗，但確實有一些可能的方向。可能是我們降低 Max 的價格。也可能是我們做一些安排，讓 Max 訂閱者享有不限次的視訊通話，而其他訂閱者則不是不限次。

So there's a number of things that it could be. But at the moment, in terms of metrics, we're not seeing a big difference, except for the fact that new users -- a cohort of new users at the moment is not even seeing Max, they're only seeing Super. And that's just one of the many experiments that we're running.

所以可能的做法有很多。但目前就指標來看，我們沒有看到很大的差異，除了新用戶——目前有一個新用戶的同質群（cohort）甚至看不到 Max，他們只看到 Super。而那只是我們正在進行的眾多實驗之一。

That's helpful. And I guess for Gillian, overall, just looking at the guidance here, obviously, understand the tougher comp on bookings in 2Q. Can you just help me think about just puts and takes that drive the back-half reacceleration.

這很有幫助。我想問 Gillian，整體來看這份指引，顯然我們理解第二季預訂（bookings）的比較基期更艱難。你能不能幫我想一下，哪些正負因素（puts and takes）會推動下半年重新加速？

I know you have mentioned as well to about 20% daily growth ebbs and flows in between each quarter. So with that back-half guidance intuitively imply that DAUs would improve from early benefits from these ongoing product initiatives?

我知道你也提到過，每季之間日活躍用戶的約 20% 成長會有起伏。所以從下半年的指引直覺來看，是否意味著 DAU 會因為這些正在進行的產品計畫而在早期就有所改善？

Yeah. I think as you look at the second-half guidance. In general, we are just planning the business based on that 20% growth basis. So really, you're going to maybe see some early returns on the investments we're making, but I wouldn't be banking on a lot of that. What we're really trying to take the long view this year and we really want to allow ourselves to operate in that range of bookings guidance that we gave, so that we can make all the investments we want to make and do what we think is right in terms of the customers.

是的。我想當你看下半年的指引時，整體而言，我們就是以 20% 的成長基準來規劃這門生意。所以你可能會看到我們投資的一些早期回報，但我不會把太多期待押在那上面。我們今年真正想做的是採取長期視角，並且希望讓自己能在我們給出的預訂指引區間內運作，這樣我們就能做出所有想做的投資，並在客戶層面做我們認為正確的事。

So when you think about the rate of growth Q2 into Q3, Q2 is a really tough comp because of the release of Energy, in particular. And a handful of other features that really made that bookings a year ago really strong. And so you'll see us bounce back from that comp. And then you'll continue to see those DAU numbers drive in the bookings.

所以當你思考從第二季到第三季的成長率時，第二季的比較基期非常艱難，特別是因為 Energy 的推出。以及其他少數幾個功能，讓去年同期的預訂表現非常強。因此你會看到我們從那個基期反彈。然後你也會持續看到這些 DAU 數字帶動預訂。

Nathan Feather, Morgan Stanley.

Morgan Stanley 的 Nathan Feather。

The rapid increase in your ability to do content generation is really interesting. On one side, I think you have really a full core set across language learning, at least us the most common languages. Are you starting to see the opportunity to kind of EB test new content for different engagement metrics?

你們在內容生成能力上的快速提升非常有意思。一方面，我認為你們在語言學習上已經有相當完整的核心內容組合，至少涵蓋最常見的語言。你們是否開始看到機會，去做 A/B 測試新的內容，以觀察不同的互動指標？

And I guess, historically, have you seen an increase in retention payer rates, whatever it may be on a higher quality of content. And then kind of looking further, how does that impact your thoughts on expanding into additional subjects [down] language learning now that, that kind of cost to entry is lower?

另外我想問，從歷史上看，你們是否觀察到內容品質更高時，留存、付費轉化率（payer rates）或其他指標會提升？再往後看，既然進入門檻成本更低了，這會如何影響你們把版圖擴展到語言學習以外其他科目的想法？

Yes. Thanks, Nathan, for the question. So yes, one thing that is exciting about -- we've been working, honestly, for years to try to have the top nine languages have content all the way to Duolingo Score 120, which we now have.

是的。謝謝你，Nathan，這個問題。所以是的，有一件令人興奮的事是——老實說，我們多年來一直努力讓前九大語言的內容一路覆蓋到 Duolingo Score 120，而我們現在已經做到了。

Internally, I kept on going around like, oh, we're almost done, we're almost done. And somebody said something that stuck with me a lot, said, no, no, no. That's just the beginning. Because when we finally have all this content and now we do, we really are in a much better spot to be able to make this content significantly get better based on how the users are performing. So we're starting really to do that. And yes, we have seen the changes in content -- certainly changes in content quality, but also in the type of content that you show have interesting impact on retention, particularly new user retention.

在內部，我一直到處說，喔，我們快完成了、快完成了。然後有人說了一句讓我印象很深的話，他說，不不不。那只是開始。因為當我們終於擁有所有這些內容——而我們現在確實有了——我們就處在一個更好的位置，能夠根據用戶的表現，讓內容顯著變得更好。所以我們真的開始在做這件事。而且是的，我們已經看到內容的變化——當然包含內容品質的變化，但也包含你呈現的內容類型——對留存有有趣的影響，特別是新用戶留存。

So we are doing a lot of experiments to see -- for example, just what we teach you in the first unit matters a lot. Do we teach you greetings? That is one thing. Do we teach you just the words for mom and dad? That's another possibility. And it actually -- it's not as simple as it's always better to teach you greetings. It's not as simple as that. It's a little more complicated than that.

所以我們做了很多實驗來看看——例如，你在第一個單元教什麼其實非常重要。我們教你打招呼嗎？那是一種做法。我們教你「媽媽」和「爸爸」的單字嗎？那是另一種可能。而且實際上——事情並不是那麼簡單，並非永遠教打招呼就比較好。不是那麼簡單。它比那更複雜一些。

But generally, these things do have an impact in retention. And so we're very excited about that. And we're also likely going to move to something where -- we have all this content, this is awesome, but we may even start generating content just for you.

但總體而言，這些事情確實會影響留存。所以我們對此非常興奮。而且我們也很可能會走向一種模式——我們有了所有這些內容，這很棒，但我們甚至可能開始為你生成專屬內容。

Based on everything that we know about you, we may just be able to generate content just for you, maybe not the immediate next exercise, but like two exercises from now based on everything. We just generated that sentence just for you or that piece of content. So we really are getting to that point, and that's very exciting.

基於我們對你的一切了解，我們也許就能為你生成專屬內容；也許不是下一個練習，而是像兩個練習之後，根據所有資訊來生成。我們就是為你生成那一句句子，或那一段內容。所以我們真的正在走到那個階段，這非常令人興奮。

In terms of other subjects, each subject has its unique challenges and unique things. So for sure, AI is helping us be able to add new subjects faster. And chess is a great example. I mean we were able to add chess in about nine months.

至於其他科目，每個科目都有其獨特的挑戰與獨特之處。所以毫無疑問，AI 正在幫助我們更快地加入新科目。西洋棋就是一個很好的例子。我的意思是，我們大約在九個月內就加入了西洋棋。

But each subject has its own types of content that you need to add. So for example, adding math was relatively easy if what you're trying to do is add math in the way that like ChatGPT would show it with a wall of text. But if you want to add math with diagrams and user interaction, et cetera. That is harder, but AI is making it -- it's definitely making it easier, but it's still a lot harder.

但每個科目都有你需要加入的不同類型內容。例如，如果你想做的是用像 ChatGPT 那樣一大段文字牆來呈現，那加入數學相對容易。但如果你想用圖表與使用者互動等方式來加入數學，那就更難；AI 正在——它確實讓事情變得更容易，但仍然困難得多。

You're not just like querying an AI to be like just give me some content. It's a lot harder to do it with all the diagrams. So I guess my answer to that is, yes, it is making it easier to add more subjects. No, it is not yet trivial to add new subjects.

你不是只是像在查詢一個 AI，然後說「就給我一些內容」。要把所有圖表都做出來要難得多。所以我想我對此的回答是：是的，這確實讓新增更多科目變得更容易。不，新增新科目目前還沒有簡單到微不足道。

And at the moment, we're pretty happy with the subjects that we have, particularly, we're very excited about math. You saw we started this call with a video for math. We really finally got to the point where our math course really has all -- pretty much all the content between grades 2 and 12. And you can actually explain things when you get things wrong. So we're very excited about that.

而且就目前而言，我們對現有的科目相當滿意；尤其是，我們對數學非常興奮。你看到我們這通電話一開始就用了一段數學的影片。我們終於走到一個階段：我們的數學課程幾乎涵蓋了二年級到十二年級之間的所有內容。而且當你做錯時，你其實可以解釋為什麼錯。所以我們對此非常興奮。

Great. That's really helpful. And then with the balance sheet, you've got a lot of cash on there, high free cash flow. I guess, what are your thoughts on what the right level of buybacks may be or what other potential uses of that cash going forward?

很好。這真的很有幫助。另外就資產負債表而言，你們上面有很多現金，自由現金流也很高。我想問的是，你們對於適當的庫藏股回購規模有什麼想法？或是未來這些現金還有哪些其他可能用途？

So as we look at the cash, you saw we returned some level of cash back to shareholders in terms of a buyback in the quarter. And we do have a $400 million authorization. So we are willing to spend that money.

所以當我們看現金部位時，你也看到我們在本季透過回購把一定程度的現金回饋給股東。而且我們確實有 4 億美元的核准額度。所以我們願意花這筆錢。

I think that, in general, we're largely focused on operating the business. So we are investing in the business as well as we look at the business this year. So really, it's going to be a balance of the two. And of course, on a buyback, you buy more when the stock is lower and less when it's higher. So we will look at that and look at where the stock is.

我認為整體而言，我們主要還是專注在營運業務。因此在看今年的業務時，我們也會投資於業務本身。所以實際上會是在兩者之間取得平衡。當然，回購方面，股價較低時買多一些，股價較高時買少一些。所以我們會看這點，也會看股價的位置。

We think it's a great time to buy our stock. It's a great way for us to offset dilution from the last couple of years as we look at the business. So we like doing this. And as you can tell, with our free cash flow estimates, we're going to generate almost as much cash as that buyback is anyway in the year. So that's the balance there.

我們認為現在是買回自家股票的好時機。這也是我們用來抵銷過去幾年稀釋效應的一個很好的方式，當我們檢視業務時也是如此。所以我們喜歡這麼做。而且如你所見，依我們的自由現金流估計，我們今年產生的現金幾乎就會跟那個回購規模差不多。所以平衡點就在這裡。

I think your other product capital allocation is, of course, M&A. We are out there in the market, always looking at things. But as you've seen, a lot of what we've done is fairly small in nature. It's not going to really hit the balance sheet so badly or if you will, until like a big deal. Obviously, we'll always look at everything that's out there. But as you've seen, Duolingo is very focused on growing Duolingo, investing in Duolingo and going from there.

我想你提到的另一個產品／資本配置方向，當然就是併購（M&A）。我們一直在市場上，持續看各種機會。但如你所見，我們做的很多交易規模都相對小。除非是大型交易，否則不至於讓資產負債表受到太大影響，或者說不會那麼明顯。顯然，我們會一直關注市場上所有機會。但如你所見，Duolingo 非常專注於成長 Duolingo、投資 Duolingo，並以此為出發點。

GameStop wants to buy eBay. We may want to do that too. I'm kidding.

GameStop 想買 eBay。我們也可能想這麼做。我開玩笑的。

Ryan MacDonald, Needham.

Ryan MacDonald，Needham。

I'm going to leave that last comment along to Luis a little bit.

我把剛剛那個最後的評論留給 Luis 來回應一下。

We're not buying eBay just so you know.

我們不會買 eBay，先跟你說清楚。

Maybe can we talk about -- you obviously rolled out and sort of had the announcement in late April about -- now that the advanced content being sort of available across all the top subjects now. Can you talk about, from a marketing perspective, how big of an unlock that is in terms of how you're either deploying that incremental performance marketing budget, now that you have the content available, and how we should start to think about how that may be sort of maybe can help to sort of replenish the top of the funnel as we go through the back half of the year and into next year?

或許我們可以談談——你們顯然在四月底推出並發布了公告，關於——現在進階內容已經在所有主要科目上都可用。你能否從行銷角度談談，這在你們如何部署新增的成效行銷預算方面，是多大的「解鎖」？既然內容已經到位；以及我們應該如何看待這可能在今年下半年到明年，如何幫助補充漏斗頂端？

Yeah. In terms of -- certainly in terms of performance marketing, I mean, we -- this matters, I think, most for English -- English learners sorry. In terms of trying to find users that are going to come into the platform, English learners are the ones that are most interested in more advanced content. And some of our performance marketing, some of the main places where we use it is in underpenetrated markets, in particular, Asia.

是的。就——當然就成效行銷而言，我的意思是——我認為這件事最重要的影響是在英文——抱歉，是英文學習者身上。在嘗試找到會進入平台的使用者方面，英文學習者是最對更進階內容感興趣的一群。而我們成效行銷的一些投放、一些主要使用場景，是在滲透率仍偏低的市場，特別是亞洲。

And one of the things that is interesting about Asia is in a number of large Asian markets, we can do profitable performance marketing. Performance marketing at Duolingo has been interesting because our free version is so good, it has not been easy for us to do profitable performance marketing because what happens is we acquire people and then they're super happy as free users. But we are finding that we can do that, particularly, for example, in China, we're able to acquire profitably. So -- and these are English learners. So in that respect, these are a bit related.

而亞洲有趣的一點是，在一些大型亞洲市場，我們可以做出有利可圖的成效行銷。Duolingo 的成效行銷一直很有意思，因為我們的免費版本太好了，所以要做出有利可圖的成效行銷並不容易；因為結果是我們把人拉進來後，他們作為免費用戶就已經非常滿意。但我們發現我們可以做到，尤其例如在中國，我們能以獲利的方式獲客。所以——而這些都是英文學習者。因此在這個層面上，這兩者確實有些關聯。

But I would say the main thing with performance marketing for us is that we just historically have underinvested in performance marketing. And we are getting just a lot more professional about it in -- certainly this year, and I think you'll see the results of that in the next few months.

但我會說，對我們而言成效行銷最主要的一點是：我們過去在成效行銷上的投入一直偏少。而我們今年在這方面變得更專業了，我想你會在接下來幾個月看到成果。

We're pretty excited about that just because we're finally building the infrastructure to have the right attribution to send users to the right place after you acquire them, et cetera, that a company our size should have probably built years ago, but we kind of just ignored it. So we're pretty excited about that.

我們對此相當興奮，因為我們終於在建立所需的基礎設施，能做正確的歸因（attribution），在獲客之後把使用者導到正確的地方等等；以我們這個規模的公司來說，這些可能早在幾年前就該建好了，但我們某種程度上一直忽略了它。所以我們對此很興奮。

Awesome. And then maybe for a follow-up perspective. As you're testing video call in Super Duolingo for sort of a cohort, that cohort of sort of net new paid subs on Super, can you just talk about what you're seeing thus far in terms of elasticity on pricing and the potential demand to pay incrementally for that feature at the Super level?

太棒了。那再追問一個角度。你們正在 Super Duolingo 中針對某個族群測試視訊通話；就這個在 Super 層級新增的付費訂閱新用戶族群而言，你能否談談目前看到的定價彈性，以及在 Super 層級為了這個功能額外付費的潛在需求？

And Gillian, maybe how is that informing your view on sort of gross margin profile as we move forward?

另外 Gillian，也許這如何影響你對未來毛利率走勢的看法？

Yeah. I mean the main thing that I'll say there is that we are running some tests on kind of what the price -- what the right price should be for Super with video call. I cannot tell you all the results because we started this work a couple of months ago. And it takes some time. We have to build the AB test, and you have to run the AB test for a few weeks to get the results, et cetera. So it's just really been eight weeks since we started this one.

是的。我的意思是，我在這裡主要想說的是：我們正在做一些測試，來判斷 Super 加上視訊通話後——價格應該是多少、什麼才是合適的價格。我不能把所有結果都告訴你，因為我們是幾個月前才開始做這項工作。而這需要一些時間。我們必須建立 A/B 測試，而且你得讓 A/B 測試跑幾週才能得到結果等等。所以從開始做這個測試到現在，其實才八週。

I just don't have a lot of results. But what I can tell you is that we are willing to pay more for Super with video call. That we know. We've learned that how much more I'll be able to tell you more in a quarter or two.

我目前沒有太多結果。但我可以告訴你的是：我們願意為了含視訊通話的 Super 支付更高的價格。這點我們是知道的。至於會多付多少，我大概在一到兩個季度後就能告訴你更多。

And Ryan, one of the reasons we've been really trying to focus everyone on we're operating within a set of ranges of financials for the business is to allow ourselves to do this kind of work, this kind of testing, check out different ways of approaching the customer on price. So all of that is anticipated in the guidance around -- here are the ranges that we want to operate in 2026.

而且 Ryan，我們一直努力讓大家聚焦的一個原因，是我們的業務財務表現會在一組區間內運作，這樣才能讓我們進行這類工作、這類測試，去嘗試以不同方式在價格上接觸客戶。因此，這些都已經反映在我們的指引之中——也就是我們希望在 2026 年運作的區間。

And in any given quarter, it might be a little bit more, a little bit less. But we anticipated that coming into the year and are executing against that. So there's no big surprises in there. And we think that the financials that we've laid out for '26 can accommodate that.

而在任何一個季度，可能會高一點、低一點。但我們在進入今年時就已預期到這點，並且正依此執行。所以這裡面沒有什麼重大意外。我們也認為，我們為 2026 年所規劃的財務框架可以容納這些變動。

(Operator Instructions) Ralph Schackart, William Blair.

(接線員指示) Ralph Schackart，William Blair。

Hopefully, this is relevant. I'll try. Luis, historically, if you kind of think about it, you have a little bit of a paradox. You over monetize historically. Now maybe we're in some sort of duration of time where you're undermonetizing the user base.

希望這個問題相關。我試試看。Luis，從歷史來看，如果你稍微回想一下，這裡有點矛盾。你過去在變現上做得有點過頭。而現在也許我們正處於某個時間段，你反而是在對用戶基礎「變現不足」。

But maybe just kind of stepping back, can you just give us a sense, the signals that you're looking at today. What are they in terms of informing you're on the right path right now? And maybe a broader sense when would be the right time to start monetizing again? I know it's only been a couple of months since the last call, but just would love to hear you sort of rip on that.

但也許先退一步，你能不能跟我們分享一下，你現在在觀察哪些訊號？這些訊號如何讓你判斷目前走在正確的路徑上？以及更宏觀地說，什麼時候才是再次開始變現的合適時點？我知道距離上次電話會議才幾個月，但很想聽你深入談談。

Yeah. So it's a great question because it really allows me to emphasize something that I've said before. And you used to work paradox, which is -- it's kind of what we feel.

是的。這是個很好的問題，因為它讓我能強調一件我之前說過的事。你用了「矛盾」這個詞——這確實就是我們的感受。

We are at the same time undermonetized and over monetized. It is a weird thing. The reality is that roughly 12% of our monthly active users are paying subscribers, we think that number should be much higher. I mean if you look at comps for the freemium models, they're much higher than that. Spotify is close to 50%. So we really think there's a lot of room there. We should be able to get more people.

我們同時處於「變現不足」與「變現過度」。這很奇怪。現實是，我們每月活躍用戶中大約 12% 是付費訂閱者，我們認為這個比例應該高得多。如果你看同類的 freemium 模式，比例都比這高很多。Spotify 接近 50%。所以我們真的認為這裡有很大的空間。我們應該能讓更多人付費。

At the same time, I think certain types of monetization, we probably overdid in the sense that we probably were making the free user experience have too much friction. And at the crux of it was that most of our monetization tactics were kind of at odds with DAU growth, not all of them, but many of them were at odds with DAU growth, which were like if you make the free user experience have more friction. What happens is that some more people subscribe, that's good, that makes you money, but also some more people leave.

同時，我認為某些類型的變現方式，我們可能做得過頭了，意思是我們可能讓免費用戶的體驗摩擦太大。而核心問題在於，我們大多數的變現策略某種程度上與 DAU 成長相衝突——不是全部，但很多都與 DAU 成長相衝突；也就是說，如果你讓免費用戶體驗更有摩擦，結果是：會有更多人訂閱，這很好、能賺錢，但也會有更多人離開。

And what we're -- what we need to do and what we are doing, which I'm very excited about, is finding ways to monetize that don't put DAU growth at odds with monetization. Those ways exist, and we're very happy with.

而我們需要做、也正在做的——我對此非常興奮——是找到一些變現方式，讓 DAU 成長不必與變現對立。這些方式是存在的，我們也對此非常滿意。

I mentioned one already, which is longer free trials. We've been historically at Duolingo. This is not something we've experimented with a lot, the length of our free trial. But if you look at other subscription businesses that are scaled, they have pretty different free trials, usually much longer than the one we have.

我已經提到一個例子，就是更長的免費試用期。過去在 Duolingo，我們其實沒有太多實驗免費試用期的長度。但如果你看其他已具規模的訂閱型業務，他們的免費試用期差異很大，通常比我們的更長。

You see one month. You sometimes even see three-month free trials. So you're going to see us experiment with that, and we are definitely seeing certainly the one-month experiment we already see. We are seeing that, that both increases revenue, which is good but also it's not at odds with daily active users, like because when you give somebody -- when you say instead of a seven-day free trial, it's a one-month free trial, that doesn't drive any user away. They're like, oh, that seems like a good thing.

你會看到一個月。有時甚至會看到三個月的免費試用。所以你會看到我們在這方面做實驗，而我們也確實看到——至少在我們已經做的一個月試用實驗中——我們看到它同時提升營收，這很好；而且它也不會與日活躍用戶相衝突，因為當你告訴某人「不是七天試用，而是一個月試用」，這不會把任何用戶趕走。他們會覺得：喔，這看起來是件好事。

So we're -- the work that we're doing is finding ways to monetize that are not at odds with DAU growth. They exist. And they're just not as quick as basically adding friction to the free user experience. And that's what we're experimenting with this year. So what Gillian said is exactly right.

所以我們正在做的工作，是找到那些不會與 DAU 成長相衝突的變現方式。它們確實存在。只是它們不像單純增加免費用戶體驗摩擦那樣見效那麼快。而這就是我們今年正在實驗的方向。所以 Gillian 說得完全正確。

The idea is that we have this year to be able to experiment with this, will probably experiment with a three-month free trial. And by the way, experimenting with a three-month free trial, some of that we said before. that is something that we could have never done if we didn't have a year like this one because in a three-month free trial, what happens is that your bookings get delayed by a whole quarter.

概念是：我們有今年這一整年可以用來做這些實驗，可能也會實驗三個月的免費試用。順帶一提，實驗三個月免費試用——我們之前也提過——如果沒有像今年這樣的一年，我們是不可能做的，因為三個月免費試用會讓你的預訂（bookings）延後整整一個季度入帳。

And so you're saying, showing up to -- without being able to say we're going to operate with these guidelines, which is what we did for this. Just saying, oh, sorry, all our bookings are going to come next quarter. They didn't come this quarter. it was a little weird. But this is why we're operating this way.

所以如果你在沒有辦法先說清楚「我們會在這些指引範圍內運作」的情況下就這麼做——而這正是我們這次所做的——你就等於是在說：喔，抱歉，我們所有的預訂都會到下個季度才進來。這一季沒有進來，會有點奇怪。但這就是我們採用這種運作方式的原因。

Mark Mahaney, Evercore.

Mark Mahaney，Evercore。

I want to ask about the gross margins. So it looks like your guidance implies they're going to kind of phase down or whatever to the high 60s in the fourth quarter. Is that -- is there a reason to think that margins -- whole gross margins hold at that level? Is there a reason to think that they should cover up higher or lower? Just talk about the trajectory of gross margins after how to think about what drives it higher or lower after this year.

我想問毛利率。看起來你們的指引暗示第四季毛利率會逐步下滑之類的，降到 60% 高段。這是——有什麼理由認為毛利率會維持在那個水準嗎？有什麼理由認為它應該回升或更低嗎？請談談今年之後毛利率的走勢，以及該如何理解哪些因素會推動它上升或下降。

Yeah, Mark, when we think about any of the margins that have AI content in them, so let's take gross margin, what you tend to find is as you start to introduce features, they might be more expensive to us, and then we optimize that cost over time. So when you look at Q1, for example, the margin held up really nicely as it compared to the year before, and that's because our per unit AI costs have come down a lot.

好的，Mark，當我們思考任何包含 AI 內容的利潤率時——以毛利率為例——你通常會發現，當你開始導入功能時，它們一開始對我們來說可能更昂貴，然後我們會隨時間去優化那個成本。所以以第一季為例，毛利率相較去年同期維持得很好，這是因為我們的單位 AI 成本已經下降很多。

Now as we look forward, we really want to put more and more AI as an ingredient in the product. And so that's why we have the margin guidance that goes down to 69%, which is essentially where we were last quarter two. And that just implies a lot more AI content, which we think is great for the business long term.

而展望未來，我們真的希望在產品中加入越來越多的 AI 作為「成分」。因此我們才會給出毛利率指引下滑到 69%，基本上就是我們上個季度的水準。這其實意味著會有更多 AI 內容，而我們認為這對長期業務非常有利。

So I think from a positioning perspective, it's possible we could optimize that more. But we sort of want to be putting that much AI into the product. So I think 69% is a good place to think about exiting the year. And that could -- if that works, that's going to give us nice growth as well. That said, this is a changing environment and some of the optimizations come faster than you expect and you could see both up and down on that one.

所以我認為，從定位角度來看，我們有可能把它再優化得更好。但我們某種程度上就是希望在產品中投入這麼多 AI。所以我認為以 69% 作為年底的退出水準是個不錯的參考。而如果這樣運作順利，也會帶來不錯的成長。不過，這是一個變動中的環境，有些優化可能比你預期更快發生，因此你也可能看到它上下波動。

Justin Patterson, KeyBanc.

Justin Patterson，KeyBanc。

Think about Duolingo as always, I think, a higher pace [profit] velocity around AB test, and the coding is certainly made it easier than ever to do lots of those. So I would love to hear about how you're thinking about just engineer productivity as a whole, a number of tests being run and how we should think about that perhaps influencing long-term headcount needs?

我一直把 Duolingo 想成是，我認為，在 A/B 測試方面有更高的（獲利）速度，而程式碼的演進確實讓做大量這類測試變得前所未有地容易。所以我很想聽聽你們如何看待整體工程師生產力、正在執行的測試數量，以及我們應該如何思考這可能對長期人力編制需求的影響？

Yeah. That's a great question. So you are right, we AB test a lot. We concurrently are running hundreds of AB test at all times. And that has been our product philosophy and that is how Duolingo has gotten better over time because we just are able to increase -- as soon as we set our minds on a given metric. If you just give us a few months, usually, we're able to increase that metric.

是的。這是個很好的問題。你說得沒錯，我們做很多 A/B 測試。我們同時在任何時刻都並行執行數百個 A/B 測試。這一直是我們的產品理念，也是 Duolingo 隨時間變得更好的方式，因為我們能夠提升——只要我們把心力放在某個指標上。通常只要給我們幾個月，我們就能把那個指標拉升。

We just run a lot of AB tests. We are finding that the number of AB tests that we can run is increasing. Some -- we believe that, that is because of AI usage, particularly in our engineering and product organization. The increase is not humongous, but it's kind of the first time we've seen an increase on a per capita basis in years.

我們就是跑非常多 A/B 測試。我們發現我們能跑的 A/B 測試數量正在增加。其中一部分——我們相信——是因為 AI 的使用，特別是在我們的工程與產品組織中。這個增幅不算巨大，但這是多年來我們第一次看到以人均（per capita）計算的提升。

So we do think that, that is helping. I don't know where this is going to end, but it is an interesting thing because if you look last year, for example, like a year ago, and you were to read Twitter, Twitter would have had you think that you can program anything you want in 5 seconds and it's done? And why shouldn't you be running 10,000 AB tests at once with a single engineer. That is an exaggeration that is just not the case.

所以我們確實認為這有所幫助。我不知道最後會走到哪裡，但這很有意思，因為如果你看例如去年——大概一年前——你去看 Twitter，Twitter 會讓你以為你想寫什麼程式 5 秒就能搞定？那為什麼不讓單一工程師同時跑 10,000 個 A/B 測試。那是誇張說法，事實並非如此。

And up until very recently, we and companies that are scale because have not seen a real increase in velocity like overall. But we're starting to see that increase. It's still moderate, but we're starting to see that increase. So I'm assuming that you're going to continue seeing that increase.

而且直到最近，我們以及具規模的公司整體上都沒有看到速度（velocity）有真正的提升。但我們開始看到那個提升了。目前仍屬溫和，但我們開始看到提升。所以我假設你會持續看到那個提升。

Now I don't think I don't think we're going to be able to run 10 times as many AB tests per capita, like per engineer. But it is increasing, and that's something that we're very happy with.

現在我不認為——我不認為——我們能以人均、也就是每位工程師，跑到 10 倍那麼多的 A/B 測試。但確實在增加，而這是我們非常樂見的。

John Colantuoni, Jefferies.

John Colantuoni，Jefferies。

So I just want to ask about sort of DAU trends. Can you give us a bit of color on how US DAUs are trending relative to international DAUs? And what that relative geographic growth could mean for bookings over time, given US users generally adopt a sub- adopt a subscription at a higher rate than international users.

我想問一下 DAU 的趨勢。你能否多提供一些背景，說明美國 DAU 相對於國際 DAU 的走勢？以及考量到美國用戶通常以較高的比率採用訂閱（subscription）相較於國際用戶，這種相對的地理成長，長期而言可能對 bookings 代表什麼？

Yeah. So DAUs are growing in the US, and they're growing in pretty much every country. But it is true that in the US, they're growing less than in many international markets. In particular, Asia is the fastest-growing market that we have that whole region.

是的。美國的 DAU 在成長，而且幾乎每個國家都在成長。但確實，美國的成長幅度低於許多國際市場。特別是亞洲是我們成長最快的市場，也就是整個那個區域。

In terms of how that affects monetization, we're not -- that doesn't seem to affect it that much. It just turns out that, yes, the US monetize as well, but it just turns out that a lot of countries monetized relatively well. A good example is China. China monetizes about as well as Western Europe, so like -- but as well as France, which is not as high as the US but pretty high. And given that the growth rate in China, I don't know the latest numbers, but I mean it's pretty significant.

至於這如何影響變現（monetization），我們不——看起來影響沒有那麼大。事實上，是的，美國的變現表現很好，但也有很多國家的變現表現相對不錯。一個很好的例子是中國。中國的變現能力大約和西歐一樣好，例如——大概和法國一樣好；法國不如美國高，但也相當高。而且考量到中國的成長率，我不知道最新數字，但我的意思是，這相當顯著。

So I just don't think that the fact that the growth in the US is very low just means that our bookings growth implies is implied to be really low. But I would say that growth in the US, my hope is that by making the product teach better and also have higher word of mouth that we are -- and also investing some in marketing in the US, which historically we had not invested in actual paid marketing in the US. My hope is that all of those things combined will allow us to have higher year-over-year growth in the US than what you currently have.

所以我不認為美國成長很低這件事，就意味著我們的 bookings 成長就會被推導為非常低。但我會說，美國的成長，我的希望是透過讓產品教得更好、也帶來更高的口碑傳播（word of mouth），以及我們也在美國投入一些行銷——過去我們歷來並沒有在美國投入真正的付費行銷（paid marketing）。我希望這些事情加總起來，能讓我們在美國的年增率高於你目前看到的水準。

Shweta Khajuria, Wolfe Research.

Shweta Khajuria，Wolfe Research。

So with the AI-driven content creation, there is a meaningful increase in content velocity. I guess, could you please talk to how you're managing quality of content as that continues to grow against volume and engagement?

在 AI 驅動的內容創作之下，內容產出速度有顯著提升。我想請你談談，當內容量與互動持續成長時，你們如何管理內容品質？

Yeah. We spend a lot of -- I mean, the main reason why our content is not growing even faster is because we're trying to make sure that it is very high quality. We do a number of things. Certainly, we do evaluations of our content, both with AI and with humans, to try to make sure that the content is very high quality. And then after that, we try to test it with our own users in small amounts to see if it's high quality. And if it is, we actually increase the number of people that we give it to.

是的。我們投入很多——我的意思是，我們的內容沒有成長得更快的主要原因，是因為我們想確保它的品質非常高。我們做了很多事情。當然，我們會用 AI 和人工兩種方式評估內容，來確保內容品質非常高。然後在那之後，我們會先用少量方式在自己的用戶中測試，看看品質是否夠高。如果夠高，我們才會把它提供給更多人。

So we're trying to be very careful to make sure that the content is high quality. It is a good point because the reality is that as amazing as AI is, if you are not careful about the quality, you can get a lot of slump. And we're trying very hard for that not to happen.

所以我們非常謹慎，確保內容品質很高。你提得很好，因為現實是，AI 再怎麼驚人，如果你不小心把關品質，就可能出現很多劣化（slump）。而我們非常努力避免這種情況發生。

So the quality of our content, I think, certainly over the last couple of quarters has actually increased. And the way we know that is we basically do spot checks and we kind of rate the quality of all the content, and we know that over the last two quarters, the quality has actually increased.

所以我認為我們內容的品質，尤其在過去幾個季度其實是提升了。我們知道這點的方式是：我們基本上會做抽查，並對所有內容的品質做評分；我們知道在過去兩個季度，品質確實提升了。

Omar Dessouky, Bank of America.

Omar Dessouky，美國銀行（Bank of America）。

Well, I just want to get back to performance marketing for a second. Glad to hear that the company is treated that is a lot more seriousness. The last time we spoke, you gave me the impression that this product would be leaps and bounds better in the future than it is today and really would change the way that people learn languages. Does the maturity of the product itself is a bottleneck to scaling performance advertising spend, right, because performance advertising typically tries to optimize specific types of behaviors -- optimize for specific types of behaviors and users.

我想再回到效果行銷（performance marketing）這件事一下。很高興聽到公司對此更認真看待。上次我們談話時，你給我的印象是，這個產品未來會比今天好上好幾個量級，並且真的會改變人們學習語言的方式。產品本身的成熟度是否是擴大效果型廣告投放支出的瓶頸？因為效果型廣告通常會嘗試去最佳化特定類型的行為——針對特定類型的行為與用戶做最佳化。

So, A, is that the case? And then, B, do you have any sense like at what point you might be ready to really put the pedal to the metal assuming your organization has done all these experiments, like when would the product be ready to really go full bore on performance marketing?

所以，A，是否確實如此？然後，B，你是否有任何感覺：假設你們組織已經做了所有這些實驗，大概在什麼時間點你們會準備好真的全力衝刺（put the pedal to the metal）？也就是產品何時會準備好在效果行銷上火力全開（go full bore）？

Yeah. I mean I would say the bottleneck for performance marketing for us has been, first of all, building the infrastructure for it to be, again, like a much more serious performance marketing machine. That is something we are doing at the moment. That's one thing, but there's another one. And it is not the quality of the teaching.

是的。我的意思是，我會說我們在效果行銷上的瓶頸，首先是建立相關基礎設施，讓它再次成為——更嚴肅、更完整的效果行銷機器。這是我們目前正在做的事情。這是一件事，但還有另一件事。而且那不是教學品質。

It is mainly the problem with our -- how good of our free -- how good our free tier is. One of the problems we've had in -- depending on the region and depending on what we advertise for, et cetera, has been being able to acquire a user, and now they're here and actually getting them to subscribe as opposed to acquiring a user, now they're here and they're very happy users of our free product.

主要問題在於我們的——我們的免費——我們的免費方案有多好。我們遇到的其中一個問題是——取決於地區以及我們投放的廣告內容等等——在於能否獲取用戶；而當用戶來了之後，如何讓他們實際訂閱，而不是只把用戶獲取進來、他們來了之後很滿意地使用我們的免費產品。

And so that's been the main bottleneck and that's the thing that we need to get over. At the moment, in some geographies, we have profitable performance marketing, but in many geographies, we do not.

所以這一直是主要瓶頸，也是我們需要突破的地方。目前，在某些地區，我們的效果行銷是可獲利的，但在許多地區則不是。

The only thing I would add to that is that we're making an investment in marketing this year, and it's not just in performance marketing, right? The team has a multi-tiered approach to marketing. And to stepping up that investment that is really well thought through and it has some diversity to it as well.

我唯一想補充的是，我們今年正在加大行銷投資，而且不只是效果行銷，對吧？團隊採取多層次的行銷策略。而且這次提高投資是經過深思熟慮的，也具備一定的多元性。

I want to make sure that I'm not thinking about performance marketing in the wrong way because I thought it would be difficult to performance market a product that isn't stable or a product that's not like mature and kind of finalize because users -- you don't actually know what you're marketing has changed so much. I just want to make sure I'm not thinking about it the wrong way.

我想確認一下我是不是用錯方式在看待效果行銷，因為我原本以為，對一個不穩定或尚未成熟、還沒完全定型的產品做效果行銷會很困難，因為用戶——你其實不知道你在行銷的東西變化這麼大。我只是想確認我沒有想錯。

I wouldn't say that -- I mean, Duolingo has been around for 15 years. It has never stayed the same and it never will. So I don't think that that's well, that's not going to change, but I don't think that's been the problem.

我不會這麼說——我的意思是，Duolingo 已經存在 15 年了。它從來沒有保持不變，未來也不會。所以我不認為那是——嗯，那不會改變，但我不認為那一直是問題所在。

Alec Brondolo, Wells Fargo.

Alec Brondolo，富國銀行。

You mentioned how fast China is growing. I think there's been two really successful brand tie-in deals over the last 12 months, one with Luckin Coffee last year. I think another with Meituan in March. Are there any kind of learnings we can take with regard to how successful those brand tie-ins have been in China and we used to kind of extend that success to other markets over the next year?

你提到中國成長很快。我想過去 12 個月有兩個非常成功的品牌聯名合作，一個是去年與瑞幸咖啡的合作。我想另一個是 3 月與美團的合作。就這些品牌聯名在中國的成功而言，我們是否有任何經驗可以汲取，並在未來一年把這種成功延伸到其他市場？

Yeah. I mean you noticed the brand partnerships. We have had incredible brand partnerships in China. I think some of that is just that our IP and our brand in China are very strong, and that commands some of the largest brands wanting to partner with us. For example, we very soon have a partnership with McDonald's in China.

是的。你注意到了品牌合作。我們在中國確實有非常出色的品牌合作。我認為其中一部分原因是我們的 IP 和品牌在中國非常強勢，因此吸引一些最大的品牌想與我們合作。例如，我們很快就會在中國與麥當勞展開合作。

And so the very large brands wanting to partner with us, they come to us to do that. I think there's that part -- there's also the part that I think brands in China, brands like Luckin Coffee, for example, are just a lot more opening to partnerships than for example, brands in the Western world. You just don't see, for example, Starbucks changing all their stores every two weeks with a new brand, whereas that's kind of what Luckin does. So there's some learnings.

所以，這些非常大型的品牌想與我們合作，他們會主動來找我們。我認為這是一部分——另外一部分是，我覺得中國的品牌，例如瑞幸咖啡，對合作的開放程度遠高於西方世界的品牌。你不太會看到例如星巴克每兩週就把所有門市換成一個新品牌，但瑞幸某種程度上就是這麼做的。所以確實有一些可借鑑之處。

Certainly, that team is -- our partnerships team in China and our marketing team in China are very high performing. So there are some learnings of things that we can do in other places, particularly in Asia. But I would say some of that also has to do with the fact that it's the China market.

當然，那個團隊——我們在中國的合作夥伴團隊以及中國的行銷團隊表現非常出色。因此有一些做法可以讓我們在其他地方複製，特別是在亞洲。但我也會說，其中一部分也與中國市場本身有關。

I will say -- the other thing that I'll say is that China is not just growing fast because of the great partnerships. I mean the great -- I think it's kind of the other way around. I think the great partnerships are coming in part because we are growing fast and we're seen as a very cool brand. I mean the reality in China is that it's just a humongous appetite for English learning that just keeps growing and growing. And that's the main reason why China is growing.

我還想說——另外一點是，中國成長快速不只是因為很棒的合作夥伴關係。我的意思是，這些很棒的——我覺得某種程度上是反過來的。我認為很棒的合作夥伴關係部分是因為我們成長很快，而且被視為一個很酷的品牌。事實上，在中國，對英語學習的需求非常龐大，而且持續成長。這才是中國成長的主要原因。

Alexander Sklar, Raymond James.

Alexander Sklar，Raymond James。

So on the relationship between DAUs and top-of-funnel growth versus kind of the visibility you've talked to in the shape of the book's inflection this year, what early tests or maybe it's tier geo-mix is out there that's providing your visibility in terms of that inflection?

關於 DAU 與漏斗頂端成長之間的關係，以及你提到今年預訂（bookings）走勢出現拐點的能見度，現在有哪些早期測試——或許是分層、地區組合（geo-mix）——正在提供你對該拐點的能見度？

Sorry, in terms of an inflection of --

抱歉，你是指拐點在——

Bookings exiting the year?

年末的預訂（bookings）？

Yeah. First, on the bookings, I think if you look at the quarterly progression, what we are guiding to, as you go Q2 into Q3, Q3 to Q4, is fairly on par with where the company has been in the last couple of years.

是的。首先，關於預訂（bookings），我認為如果你看季度的推進，以及我們給出的指引，從 Q2 到 Q3、Q3 到 Q4，基本上與公司過去幾年的表現相當一致。

So I think one of the things we want to make sure we remind everyone of is this is we're playing a long game here, and the investments we're making are -- maybe see some things from this year, but we're really looking out beyond this year. So 2026 is much more about operating around that 20% DAU growth and then growing the business.

所以我認為我們想提醒大家的一點是：我們是在打長期戰，而我們正在做的投資——也許今年會看到一些效果，但我們真正著眼的是今年之後。因此，2026 年更著重於在約 20% 的 DAU 成長率下運營，並推動業務成長。

And then right now, what you're seeing that progression is pretty typical seasonality. There's been an adjustment here in Q1 and Q2 to our new monetization balance. But then in Q3 and Q4, what you're seeing is quite typical for us.

另外，就目前你看到的那個進展而言，這是相當典型的季節性。在 Q1 和 Q2，因為我們新的變現平衡，確實做了一些調整。但到了 Q3 和 Q4，你看到的就非常符合我們一貫的情況。

I'm showing no further questions. This concludes the Q&A section of the call. I would now like to turn the call back to the host for closing remarks.

我這邊顯示沒有其他問題。問答環節到此結束。現在我想把電話交回主持人作結語。

Thank you. Thanks, operator. I'd just like to thank everyone for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you on the next call.

謝謝。謝謝，接線員。我也想感謝各位參與，我們期待在下一次電話會議再見。