Duolingo · AI product · Entry · 60 to 90 minutes

Redesigning Max Roleplay Session Quality

Duolingo is a language learning app with free and paid tiers, including Duolingo Max, which uses AI in features such as Roleplay and Video Call. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

User empathy
Metric design
Safety thinking
Prioritisation
Experiment design

The situation

The Head of Duolingo Max has asked you to propose the next iteration of Roleplay, the existing AI conversation feature where learners act out real situations in the language they are studying. Roleplay has been in market since 2023 and users like the idea, but the team is not aligned on what makes a session actually good. Some sessions feel realistic but wander away from the learner's level. Others are safe but too stiff to feel useful. Safety reviewers also see edge cases where the AI becomes rude, gives confusing cultural advice, or drifts into topics that are not appropriate for all learners. Assume the following numbers for this exercise: 62 percent of started Roleplay sessions reach the end, 28 percent of users start a second session in the same week, and 1.1 percent of sessions trigger a user report or an internal safety flag. The team wants to improve quality and guardrails before expanding Roleplay to more scenarios and making it more prominent inside Max. The hard part is balancing realism, learning value, safety, and cost without turning the experience into a scripted quiz.

What to produce

A 1 to 2 page product proposal.

Your answer must

Define what a good Roleplay session is, using 3 to 5 clear criteria that cover learner value and safety.
Choose one primary user segment and one scenario scope to prioritise first, and explain why you are not starting broader.
Propose a solution with the main product, UX, and AI guardrail changes needed to improve session quality.
Include a metric set with one north star, 2 to 4 supporting metrics, and at least 2 guardrail metrics for safety or misuse.
Outline a first launch or experiment plan for the next 8 weeks, including key risks and how you would learn from the rollout.

Constraints

You have 8 weeks for an MVP with 1 designer, 4 engineers, and shared applied AI support.
You cannot use live human tutors or manual review in the core experience.
The first release must fit within the current Max mobile app experience on iOS and Android.
You should design for one existing Max language course first, not for all languages at once.

Format

Use short sections with headings such as goal, target user, quality definition, solution, metrics, and launch plan. Make tradeoffs explicit.