New Delhi, Aug. 18 -- A showdown is brewing in language technology. Duolingo, the world's most recognisable edtech brand, just watched its stock drop by 38 percent from its peak this summer. The sell-off followed Wall Street's rocky reaction to sweeping promises about making Duolingo an "AI-first company," but the real driver is competition from the biggest name in artificial intelligence: OpenAI.

OpenAI's GPT-5 demonstration was the moment everything changed. Not only did the new model ace conversation and translation, it built a robust language learning app on the fly from a single prompt. In minutes, it created flashcards, progress tracking, and even a basic educational game. Investors, developers, and analysts saw Duolingo's USP redu...