Jarno M. Koponen is a serial AI builder and co-founder and CEO of Aamu (stealth), building the next generation of consumer AI agents. For over 15 years he has turned emerging AI into products people actually use, and into organizations that know how to build them: from a predictive discovery startup in Helsinki/San Francisco to Zalando Assistant, scaled from zero to 50 million customers across 27 markets.
In a nutshell
- Zalando Assistant: founding product design leader, taking it from idea to launch in under six months and scaling it to over 50 million customers in 27 markets.
- Transformation across industries: an AI-augmented operating model for news media with new job roles and teams, and agentic tooling and workflows for ecommerce product design and development.
- Self-learning AI assistant a decade ago: Voitto, the first smart news assistant on the lock screen, kept on by more than 90% of its users.
- Personalization at scale: the fastest-growing personalized news product serving millions, and award-winning personalized content experiences.
- Patented innovation: a UI/UX and AI method for predictive discovery, with the patent cited by Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe, Sony and IBM.
Track record
Aamu (since 2026). Co-founder and CEO. In stealth, more to come.
Zalando (2022 to 2026). At Zalando, Europe’s leading online fashion and lifestyle platform, Jarno was the first-ever Head of AI Product Design, leading AI product design across agentic AI (customer-facing experiences and internal tooling), generative AI, and search and discovery. He founded and scaled Zalando Assistant from zero to 50 million customers across 27 markets, and scaled agentic tooling for product design and development across the company.
Yle (2016 to 2022). As the first-ever Head of AI & Personalization at Yle News, part of Finland’s public service media company, Jarno led the AI transformation of the newsroom: machine learning tools for news acquisition and investigation, new job roles and teams, and personalized news products, including Yle Uutisvahti, Yle’s fastest-growing digital service, and the award-winning Troll Factory.
Futureful (2010 to 2015). As co-founder and CCO of Futureful in Helsinki and San Francisco, Jarno created Random, an AI-powered predictive content discovery app and engine. Futureful was backed by Iconical, the fund of Skype co-founder Janus Friis, and its predictive discovery method was patented.
My approach
I practice a multidisciplinary approach to create human-centric and sustainable products and organizations. My work combines humanism, data science and design, the fields of my two Master’s degrees.
I dive deep into technology to combine meaningful content, AI and user experience, bringing together human curation, machine learning, design thinking and business.
I’m driven by impact. At heart, I’m an entrepreneur.
I lead by example and trust in continuous scenario thinking: well-thought alternatives are key to making enlightened decisions. I give responsibility and expect accountability, because trust creates ownership and commitment. Systematic self-reflection is key to learning and progress.
I believe in continuous iteration. Dare to think differently, but test your ideas ruthlessly. Be consistent and persistent in the face of challenges.
My leadership mantra is simple: define the mission and direction together, calibrate the focus and goals together, and find the right rhythm together. A state of iterative peace emerges, in which you have a working compass to proactively navigate the present and the future.
Koponen’s law of personalization
“Every digital experience that can be personalized algorithmically, will be personalized algorithmically.” (original post)
Writing, talks and press
Jarno writes and speaks about AI product design, agentic customer experience, personalization and leadership. His recent article How to build agentic CX frameworks (Zalando Design, 2026) sets out how product design and development change in the age of agents. He has written expert articles for Fast Company, TechCrunch and VentureBeat, and given keynote talks at international conferences.
His work has been covered by The New York Times, NPR, Forbes, Fast Company, TechCrunch, Mashable, Vice, MIT Technology Review, the Reuters Institute at Oxford and the London School of Economics.
Read my writing ⚡️ · See my talks ⚡️ · Press coverage ⚡️
Beyond work
Life isn’t just work. I read, cycle and enjoy art in various forms. Lego keeps fascinating me. I also used to be a musician.
Connect
📧 [first name].[last name](you-know-it) gmail.com
