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Оксана СтепураThat's Life
19 October 2026, 09:45
2026-10-19
“AI evolved faster than Promova adapted.” Boosters explained why the application team was reduced from 186 to 12 people
Ukrainian language learning app Promova has fallen behind the development of AI tutors and is starting to lose ground in the market. Over the past year, its team has shrunk from 186 to 12 people, and the project itself, which became independent last year, is returning to venture builder Boosters. Boosters CEO Mykhailo Galyan told what went wrong and how they are now planning to save Promova.
Ukrainian language learning app Promova has fallen behind the development of AI tutors and is starting to lose ground in the market. Over the past year, its team has shrunk from 186 to 12 people, and the project itself, which became independent last year, is returning to venture builder Boosters. Boosters CEO Mykhailo Galyan told what went wrong and how they are now planning to save Promova.
He spoke about this in an interview with Forbes Ukraine.
According to Galyan, the business was growing until the end of 2025, but the situation changed in 2026. While competitors were launching AI tutors and rebuilding their products to take advantage of new artificial intelligence capabilities, Promova was unable to keep up with these changes.
"AI was developing faster than Promova was adapting. The market began to be dominated by products that were either immediately built as AI assistants and AI tutors, or were quickly adapted to do so," Galyan explained.
Promova was also trying to change. The team worked on an AI tutor and tried new approaches to the product. However, according to Galyan, the experiments started too late, and attempts to move in several directions at once only scattered the efforts.
Ultimately, the company was faced with three options: close Promova, transfer it to another business in the Genesis ecosystem, or return it to Boosters, where the app was created in 2019. The latter option was chosen. Boosters now plans to help Promova with its expertise in the field of AI, as well as review its approaches to marketing and operational management.
In total, Promova has gone through three waves of layoffs. Some employees have also left on their own or moved to other Genesis projects. Some specialists from the remaining team are now moving to Boosters.
Previously, dev.ua wrote that another wave of layoffs began at Promova in early October, but at the time the company did not disclose how many people were laid off and why.
