In April 2025, the Kayode Alabi Leadership and Career Initiative (KLCI) launched Rafiki AI, touted as Africa’s first generative AI career advisor specifically designed for underserved and displaced young people. The platform is accessible entirely through WhatsApp and offers round-the-clock support. Within just three days of its launch, Rafiki AI garnered 1,200 users across 22 countries, including 16 African nations.
The swift uptake can be attributed to student and refugee networks, low-income schools, and community organizations. The platform quickly spread from African Leadership University campuses to refugee settlements and rural classrooms in regions such as Lagos State, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Yemen.
As of January 2026, Rafiki AI has expanded its reach, now serving over 9,339 users across 60 countries, with approximately 90 percent of them located in Nigeria. Remarkably, the platform has achieved this without any marketing expenditure, processing nearly 40,000 career-related queries and facilitating over 82,500 messages. Estimates suggest that the free career guidance provided equates to a market value of over $466,000.
On the heels of this successful launch, KLCI has introduced Rafiki X, a web-based extension of Rafiki AI. This new offering includes advanced features such as CV uploads and feedback, application story generation, voice prompts, and retentive memory for ongoing career conversations. Rafiki X operates on a solidarity-based model, with optional subscription plans priced at $2 per month or $12 per year. Despite these subscription options, KLCI assures that the core WhatsApp and web-based career guidance will remain free for those who are underserved and displaced.
Hammed Kayode Alabi, the KLCI Founder and Co-CEO, emphasized that this model aims to reduce reliance on grants, creating a sustainable and equitable funding mechanism for AI in education and social change. He noted the importance of fostering a self-sustaining structure that can continue to provide essential services to marginalized communities.
Shalom Adedeji, Rafiki Fellow and Head of Communications, added that every paid subscription directly contributes to enabling free career guidance for young people who need it most. This solidarity model effectively allows those who can afford to pay to support those who cannot.
KLCI has set an ambitious goal of reaching 10 million underserved and displaced young people with career counseling by the year 2030. This initiative not only seeks to address immediate career guidance needs but also aims to empower a generation of young people by providing them with the tools and resources necessary for their professional development.
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