With some of the worlds largest tech companies recently citing AI in announcing wholesale layoffs, can Melissa’s human-centric, AI-powered company provide workers with the strategies needed to navigate a rapidly changing job market?
When artificial intelligence started dominating headlines with warnings about job losses, automation and the uncertain future of work, most founders rushed to build tools that would replace labour. Melissa Jenner chose a different path.
Instead of asking what AI could eliminate, the New Zealand entrepreneur asked what it could protect.
Now based in Denver, Jenner is the founder of Actvo, an AI-powered platform that predicts a person’s next job and helps them learn and grow into it before they’re left behind. In a labour market increasingly shaped by algorithms, restructures and shifting skill demands, Actvo is designed to give individuals something many feel they’re losing: clarity and control.
“We predict your next job or gig,” Jenner says simply. “And then we help you get ready for it.”
The idea was sparked in early 2023 during a coffee conversation about where artificial intelligence could have the most positive impact. Jenner had spent eight years running a successful in-person career services business, helping people navigate professional transitions. Through that work she had accumulated a deep library of insights, use cases and proven processes. But she could see the limits of a human-led, time-intensive model.
At the same time, she was noticing something counterintuitive emerging in research around AI: when conversations involve vulnerability like finances, weight, or career uncertainty, many people felt more honest with a machine than with another human.
Career decisions sit at the heart of identity. They affect income, status, confidence and family stability. Yet most people don’t have a truly safe space to explore their next move. Managers are conflicted because they want to retain staff. Friends and family bring bias. Professional coaches can be expensive and time-consuming. Existing corporate tools are typically built with the employer’s interests first.
Jenner believed AI could create a neutral, emotionally safer environment for individuals to think out loud about their future. And importantly, start learning again.
“Fundamentally – none of us can remain comfortable. To transition into new work in the age of AI, we are all going to have to start learning again”, she says.
That belief led her to “blow up” her existing business model and rebuild it as a scalable personal career learning platform. Actvo uses human-centred design principles (a methodology Jenner learned from Stanford University during her time at NZ Trade & Enterprise) to guide users through a structured self-discovery process before surfacing & matching them to both ‘work pathways’ and potential next roles or projects.
Rather than starting with ideas and searching job boards and listings, Actvo begins by unpacking who a person is becoming. What do they value? What are they wanting to learn? What kind of lifestyle do they want? What skills are adjacent to the ones they already have?
From there, the platform predicts realistic next roles and maps a learning skills & experience pathway to get there. For around the same monthly price of a pint of beer, the model is deliberately affordable, making structured career navigation accessible beyond executive coaching circles.
The timing may prove critical. Globally, organisations are restructuring at pace as AI tools accelerate productivity. Entire job categories are being reshaped. Even high-skilled professionals are questioning what their roles will look like in five years. In that environment, reactive job searching can feel chaotic and disempowering.
Jenner argues that the real opportunity isn’t just replacing work with automation, but helping people proactively reposition themselves with new skills, before disruption hits.
Actvo has already piloted with multiple companies across different markets, refining its customer base and narrowing in on where it delivers the most value. But Jenner has deliberately resisted chasing fast venture capital or building a hype-driven Silicon Valley narrative.
Instead, she relocated to Denver to embed herself in a startup ecosystem known for its collaborative “give-first” culture. The move has opened doors to accelerators, federal government workshops and international speaking opportunities such as her recent address to the International Economic Development Council Leadership Summit in Washington DC - experiences that would have been difficult to access from afar.
Still, at the core of Actvo is not geography or growth strategy, but mission. Jenner believes the psychological cost of career uncertainty is underestimated. Loss of work, or even the fear of it, can erode confidence and destabilise families. In her view, the next wave of AI products should not only optimise productivity, but restore hope.
That conviction is what keeps her building, even when the founder journey feels heavy.
“If you’re mission-driven, you’re in it for the long haul,” she says. “This job market is changing fast. People are going to need tools that help them reskill and reposition at scale.”
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape industries, Actvo represents a subtle but powerful shift in how it might personally play out for more people.
