Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences students Susanna Auramo and Eemil Saari are taking part in a unique initiative run by technology company Sofigate, in which six young people are developing AI solutions to help other young people find work. Here, they describe what happens when young people are genuinely given the space — and the trust — to get on with it.
When Haaga-Helia student Susanna Auramo applied to join Sofigate’s Impossible/Possible initiative, she didn’t write her application alone. She asked an AI to review her draft — from the perspective of Sofigate’s managing director.
“I bounced my application off the AI. I’d throw it something and try different angles. I wrote it myself, but the AI helped me see how it would look to someone on the outside,” says Auramo.
Fellow participant from Haaga-Helia, Eemil Saari, went even further. Before his interview, he built his own AI agent together with a friend and demonstrated it live to his interviewer, Sofigate’s Chief Technology Officer, Lassi Kurkijärvi.
“I’m not the most technical person by nature. But I thought — why not show in concrete terms what I’m capable of learning? Lassi was immediately excited by the agent, and I got a place on the programme,” Saari recalls.
The way both students secured their places on the Kurkijärvi-led Impossible/Possible initiative says a great deal about the spirit of the programme itself.
Sofigate launched its six-month initiative in February 2026, bringing together a group of young people at the start of their careers to build AI agents designed to support job hunting and career planning. The idea grew from Kurkijärvi’s own experience in the 1990s, when he was part of a cohort of digital natives hired to explore what the internet meant for media companies.
History is now repeating itself — this time with AI. According to Statistics Finland, tens of thousands of young adults in the country have never held a job. There are widespread fears that AI will eliminate precisely the entry-level roles most accessible to those just starting out. Kurkijärvi wants to flip the question on its head: what happens when AI is treated as the solution rather than the threat?
The Impossible/Possible team is developing ChatGPT-based AI agents for use by other young people. The aim is to help young jobseekers identify their own strengths, make sense of increasingly opaque job advertisements, and find their way into their first real position.
Auramo and Saari hold the title of Junior Adviser at Sofigate. They are clear that the young people on the programme were not recruited to carry out predefined tasks — there has been ample room for them to genuinely shape their own roles.
“We don’t have a project manager as such, or a structure handed down from above. We’ve been able to set our own objectives. It demands self-direction, but it also creates genuine space for thinking,” reflects Saari.
Along the way, the team has met with representatives from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, explored the role of AI in recruitment with Kesko’s HR leadership, and discussed support for youth entrepreneurship with the City of Helsinki.
Auramo also organised a national dialogue event, the findings from which will inform government policy and feed into further development of the agents.
One of the initiative’s key observations is the polarisation of AI literacy. Auramo and Saari have run AI workshops at various educational institutions and have seen it first-hand. Well over 60 per cent of young people have only a surface-level understanding of how to use AI effectively — even when they are using the tools on an almost daily basis.
Saari advocates for continuous, hands-on teaching — not just ethical reflection, but concrete practice: building agents, writing prompts, and learning to articulate one’s own strengths with the help of AI.
“When you use generative AI, it tends to produce something very generic. Authenticity is what we’re wrestling with — how do you get the young person’s own voice into it?” he says.
The Impossible/Possible initiative runs until September 2026. Its goals include publishing a final report on youth employment, releasing an agent library for jobseekers, and producing a guide for young people on how to make the most of AI.
Saari hopes to continue at Sofigate working in business sales and on the Salesforce platform. Auramo, meanwhile, is writing her dissertation on an agent prototype and is keen to remain at the forefront of AI development.
Their message to fellow Haaga-Helia students is unambiguous.
“Don’t just react to change — be part of it. As long as you stay one or two weeks ahead of everyone else, you’ll always have something to offer employers,” they say, almost in unison.
This article was produced as part of the AI and Equality in the Workplace (ReiluAI) project, in collaboration with Sofigate, and funded by the Finnish Work Environment Fund together with Haaga-Helia.
