A new chapter for Uplimit — and for everyone navigating the AI economy

Five years ago, we started Uplimit with a simple conviction: online learning could actually work — and the world needed a better way to learn at scale.

At the time, most digital learning meant watching videos, clicking through quizzes, and earning certificates that said very little about what someone could actually do. Learning had become more scalable than ever, but somewhere along the way it had stopped being effective.

We thought AI could change that.

That belief didn't come from nowhere. It started as an experiment in the middle of the pandemic, before Uplimit existed. My husband taught the first course, and we set out to test a single question: could online learning actually work (and at scale)?

The response exceeded anything we imagined. People didn't just show up — they immersed themselves, spending more than twelve hours a week learning, practicing together, asking thoughtful questions, and helping one another. It didn't feel like an online course. It felt transformative. And it convinced us that online education could build real skills at scale.

Over the last five years, we've had the privilege of turning that early insight into a company.

Together with customers including Databricks, Procore, GE HealthCare, and many others, we've shown that organizations no longer have to choose between learning that works and learning that scales. We've seen completion rates above 90 percent — but more importantly, we've watched thousands of people develop skills they immediately put into practice at work.

Today, I'm thrilled to share the next chapter.

Uplimit is joining Handshake, where I'll serve as Chief Education and Workforce Officer.

This is much more than an acquisition. It's a chance to pursue the mission that brought us here on a much bigger stage.

We're living through one of the fastest shifts in the labor market any of us have experienced. AI is reshaping jobs faster than traditional education and workforce systems can adapt. Employers are searching for skills that barely existed a few years ago. Students and professionals are trying to figure out what to learn next, often without clear guidance or meaningful ways to demonstrate what they've learned.

We need the infrastructure to help people continuously develop new skills as work itself evolves.

That's why Handshake is such a compelling partner.

Handshake sits at the intersection of higher education, employers, frontier labs and career outcomes in a way no other company does. Millions of students already rely on it to launch their careers. Hundreds of thousands of employers rely on it to find talent.

As the economy and the jobs within it transform faster than ever before, helping people keep learning, reskilling, upskilling, reinventing what they do, has become urgent in a way I couldn't have predicted. And I can't think of a better partner than Handshake to do it with.

By bringing Uplimit's AI-native learning platform together with Handshake's network, we have the opportunity to connect learning and employment far more directly. Enterprise business and the support you've come to love continues, along with the team you’ve partnered with. We will also be building a skills studio, initially focused on AI skills that will launch this fall.

I'm grateful to every single person who's been part of this — the team who built it, the customers who believed early, our partners and investors, and the learners chose Uplimit as the place to learn. Thank you.

Onwards!

Julia