Startup Offers AI Tools to Find New Jobs for Workers Displaced by AI

Chieh Huang learned a lot after launching Boxed Wholesale from his parents’ New Jersey garage. Over the course of a decade, he built a highly automated warehouse, ramped to a peak of about 600 employees, went public on the New York Stock Exchange and ultimately tapped out with a 2023 bankruptcy filing. His once promising operation, which was often described as Costco in your smartphone because it specialized in bulk sizes of household goods ordered through an app, got sold off in pieces.

Now the tech founder who cut hundreds of jobs — and has been laid off himself — is trying to convert those lessons into a comeback story. Huang thinks artificial intelligence, which threatens to displace millions of jobs globally, can make layoffs more humane and help displaced workers quickly find new roles.

So AI is likely coming for your job. But it also might be coming to the rescue.

“What we realized is no one has created a company to help all the people being displaced by AI,” said Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer at Pelgo, which is based in New York City. “Who is helping them transition to the future if their industry starts to disappear?”

Tech company restructurings tied to artificial intelligence were a key driver of 1.2 million layoffs announced in the US last year, according to a January report by career transition firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

With $5.5 million from investors, Pelgo is targeting the employer-sponsored outplacement industry, which globally generates about $5 billion annually to help displaced workers freshen their resumes and LinkedIn profiles and otherwise guide them toward new careers. The outplacement firms are typically hired by the employer that is shedding workers, at a cost of several thousand dollars per employee. Huang said Pelgo can use AI tools to reduce that expense to about $20 per month per displaced worker, which he thinks will compel more employers to offer the services.

Outplacement services are required in some countries, like France and Germany. In the US, they’re voluntary. Many employers offer them as a hedge against wrongful termination claims and to protect their reputations.

Huang said the voluntary nature of outplacement in the US means many employees who need it most, like front-line workers in retail, warehousing and hospitality, don’t get it at all. Retail and warehousing combined for more than 180,000 job cuts in 2025, with both industries seeing increased displacement from the previous year, according to the Challenger, Gray & Christmas report.

Pelgo uses large language models to scan worker resumes and make suggestions to help them stand out for the software tools recruiters often use to screen applicants. It also offers advice about what kind of training would help them qualify for new roles.

One-third of 5,000 unemployed workers surveyed by Pelgo said they’ve been job searching for six months or longer, indicating a lot of people could use help finding a new paycheck. Huang, who declined to name any existing customers, said the service is live in seven countries and that hundreds of displaced workers have used it. Their marketing relies mostly on word of mouth through corporate human resources circles.

“Outplacement was always a service offered to people who needed it the least,” he said. “We want it to be for everyone.”