Duolingo Launches Attention Guarantees for Advertisers, Powered by Adelaide

Adelaide’s AU metric will power guaranteed media quality thresholds across Duolingo’s in-app advertising inventory.

Duolingo is launching AU guarantees powered by Adelaide, giving advertisers a contractual commitment to a minimum level of media quality across its in-app inventory using AU, Adelaide’s omnichannel metric that predicts a placement’s likelihood of capturing attention and driving business outcomes.

With the launch, Duolingo joins a growing group of publishers using AU guarantees to bring media quality into the buying process.

The offering follows a March 2026 audit of Duolingo’s online video (OLV) inventory, which used Adelaide AU to assess the quality of its media placements.

The audit found that Duolingo’s mobile in-app OLV inventory scored 34% above Adelaide’s benchmark. Longer-form formats delivered the strongest AU scores, offering additional insight into how ad experience and format can influence an ad placement’s ability to capture attention and drive outcomes in in-app environments.

Duolingo is using these findings to inform how it structures its ad offerings, including packages that group higher-attention placements and give advertisers clearer visibility into media quality before they buy. Duolingo also plans to incorporate AU reporting into campaign delivery, enabling advertisers to evaluate media quality alongside other campaign performance insights.

“People come to Duolingo to learn, which means they are actively listening, thinking, and responding—not passively scrolling,” said Andrew Guendjoian, Head of Sales, Duolingo. “This research gives advertisers independent proof of the quality of that attention, while AU Guarantees make it easier to buy our inventory with confidence. As we grow the business, we’re focused on creating advertising that delivers results for brands, fits naturally into the Duolingo experience, and helps keep learning free for millions of people.”

“Guarantees are the clearest signal a publisher can send about the quality of its inventory,” said Marc Guldimann, Co-founder & CEO, Adelaide. “In-app environments like Duolingo can offer some of the most engaged experiences on mobile, but advertisers haven’t always had a consistent way to compare their quality with the broader market. With access to AU insights and Guaranteed-AU packages, advertisers can make investment decisions based on a predictive measure of media quality and its likelihood to drive results.”

Adelaide AU is an omnichannel media quality metric that measures a placement’s likelihood of capturing attention and driving business outcomes, based on a combination of placement signals, eye-tracking data, and full-funnel outcomes.

Duolingo is the leading mobile learning platform globally. Its flagship app has organically become the world’s most popular way to learn languages and the top-grossing app in the Education category on both Google Play and the Apple App Store. With technology at the core of everything it does, Duolingo has consistently invested to provide learners with a fun, engaging, and effective learning experience while remaining committed to its mission to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available.