Purpose This paper aims to compare the use of technology in language institutes before and amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, the authors illustrate the legacies of the COVID-19 pandemic for language institutes from the managers’ perspective. Design/methodology/approach In the current study, the authors went through a systematic process of collecting qualitative data, discovering sub-categories, forming categories out of them and explaining the topic under investigation using selected categories. Findings The findings showed that the use of technology has dramatically changed from limited usage for administrative purposes and computer-assisted language learning to building the future of an institute based on online education. Also, the health and education pandemics had positive legacies for language education in making a decision to move to fully online education for having a more sustainable organization, solving the potential problems of an organization with collaboration and cooperation between the managers and employees based on integrity, developing teachers’ knowledge, literacy and skills which lead to the best practices in online language teaching and shifting to flexible schedule based on the students’ needs and timetable which increases the accessibility of language education. Originality/value Based on the review, none of the previous research focused on the critical role of managers in language institutes facing the pandemic. Thus, the relationship between managerial decisions in technology integration, readiness for transformation and moving to online language education is still vague.