Duolingo shares rose roughly 6% in premarket trading Tuesday and were later up more than 5% after Evercore ISI upgraded the language-learning platform to Outperform from In Line and raised its price target to $210 from $105. The new target implied nearly 42% upside from Monday’s close. Analyst Mark Mahaney said Evercore’s survey indicated Duolingo had roughly four times the selection of its closest pure-play competitor and that recent AI-linked product changes were associated with higher satisfaction and daily usage. Daily usage rose from 61% in 2025 to 65% in 2026, while current user retention reached a record 84%, about 1 percentage point higher than a year earlier. Evercore highlighted AI-enabled features including spoken tokens, Flashcards and Speaking Adventures as potential drivers of engagement and user growth. The firm’s earlier research, based on 1,300 U.S. language learners, found that ChatGPT usage often overlapped with Duolingo rather than replacing it. Evercore projects approximately 99 million daily active users by 2028, compared with 58.7 million in the second quarter, and raised its 2027 and 2028 earnings-per-share estimates to 10% and 25% above Street consensus, respectively. DA Davidson also raised its target to $175 from $160 and maintained a Buy rating. The bullish view contrasts with broader Wall Street sentiment, where 17 of 25 analysts covering Duolingo had Hold ratings, according to LSEG data. Duolingo’s shares remained lower in 2026 after the company struggled to sustain paid-subscriber growth and faced risks from AI disruption.