In this episode of Unmasked, Melody Mejeh dives into the shocking new MIT study showing that 95% of enterprise AI deployments deliver zero measurable return—despite billions invested. From flawed integration to the “learning gap” between leadership and employees, we uncover the hidden reasons most AI projects fail before they even get off the ground.

But this isn’t just a critique—it’s a roadmap. Melody explores what separates the 5% of companies that succeed, why staff training is the overlooked multiplier, and how to actually measure real ROI in AI projects. Plus, she brings it close to home with a real-world example: U.S. Bank’s rollout of Microsoft Copilot in Teams, and the dangers of deploying AI without workflow integration or employee training.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

* Why AI isn’t failing—workflows are.

* The “learning gap” MIT identified that keeps pilots stuck in purgatory.

* Why U.S. Bank’s Copilot rollout shows how not to deploy AI.

* The three ways to measure real ROI: time saved, money gained, quality improved.

* What the 5% of successful companies do differently (hint: it’s not about the tool, it’s about the people).

* Why AI isn’t a silver bullet—it’s a hammer. And without carpentry skills, the house falls apart.

Key Stats Mentioned

* 95% of AI pilots show zero return (MIT NANDA Report, 2025).

* Only 5% of companies see measurable P&L impact.

* Early adopters who trained staff saw 41% average ROI (Snowflake).

* Companies that trained employees saw productivity double (Google Cloud).

* McKinsey projects AI could add $6–$8 trillion annually to the global economy—if companies get adoption right.

Resources & References

* MIT study on generative AI adoption

* Tom’s Hardware: Why AI fails in enterprise

* McKinsey: The economic potential of generative AI

* Snowflake: Early adopters ROI report

* Google Cloud: ROI from generative AI

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a colleague or leader in your network who’s feeling the AI hype but struggling with the ROI. And ask yourself: In your company, how are you measuring real return?

In this episode of Unmasked, Melody Mejeh — neurodivergent founder, product leader, and CEO of KindPath — speaks candidly about the recent wave of headlines linking AI to mental health harm. From reports of “AI psychosis” and bots validating delusions, to new research showing both risks and benefits, Melody dives into the conflicting evidence and what it means for leaders building in this space.

She lays out the hard questions every founder, engineer, and policymaker must ask themselves when designing with AI in mental health: Are we reducing harm? Are we transparent about limitations? Are we building for trust, or just speed?

Drawing on her work at KindPath, Melody also shares her team’s core commitments: clear boundaries, human oversight, transparency, and always listening to providers, clinicians, and people with lived experience.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

* Why recent headlines about “AI psychosis” and chatbot misuse are a wake-up call.

* The conflicting research: how AI tools can both reduce depression and anxiety and create new risks of dependency or harm.

* Key factors that separate positive from negative outcomes: structure, supervision, population, and boundaries.

* The checklist every builder should follow to make AI in mental health responsible and safe.

* How KindPath is reimagining mental health with prevention as the foundation, not crisis.

Listener TakeawayAI isn’t inherently good or bad for mental health. The difference comes down to how we build, the safeguards we set, and who we involve in the process. Prevention and responsibility must go hand in hand.

Special Call to ActionMelody will be speaking at Twin Cities Startup Week with her talk “The Architecture of Prevention: Designing Mental Health Support for a Fractured System”.

In this talk, she calls out the failures of our reactive mental health system and introduces a bold alternative: prevention woven into the fabric of care. She’ll explore how behavioral science, technology, and lived experience can help us catch the subtle signs we usually miss — before breakdown.

You can help bring this conversation to a bigger stage by voting for her session here:👉 Vote for Melody’s talk

Quotes Worth Sharing

* “In mental health, ‘move fast and break things’ doesn’t apply. Breaking things here means breaking people.”

* “AI doesn’t create illness, but it can amplify distorted thinking when safeguards are missing.”

* “Prevention isn’t an afterthought. It’s the platform everything else should be built on.”

What if the very programs claiming to help founders are quietly shutting the door on the most innovative among us? In this episode of Unmasked, I dig into the unspoken barriers baked into accelerator culture—rules that systematically filter out brilliant builders who don’t fit a narrow mold.

From full-time founder requirements that exclude parents, immigrants, and those with disabilities, to relocation demands that ignore the realities of community ties and financial constraints, I explore how these policies privilege access over ability. You’ll hear why the “meritocracy” myth falls apart when the starting line isn’t the same for everyone—and how we’re missing out on solutions that could change the world.

I share stories like Maria’s—a single mom and engineer rejected by multiple accelerators not for lack of traction, but because she couldn’t drop everything and move. I spotlight organizations challenging the status quo, proving that real innovation comes from people living the problems they’re solving.

In this episode, we’ll explore:

* How “full-time founder” rules really function as a privilege filter

* The geography trap: why relocation requirements kill local innovation

* The myth of meritocracy in accelerator selection

* Examples of inclusive funding models that work

* What real founder potential looks like beyond the Silicon Valley mold

This isn’t about lowering standards—it’s about broadening our view of what commitment, talent, and innovation truly look like.

If you’ve ever felt shut out by the gatekeepers, this one’s for you.

In this episode of Unmasked, I take you back to where it all started—East 97th Street in Manhattan, where I grew up straddling the line between East Harlem and Yorkville. It was a block shaped by invisible borders and constant noise. Not metaphorical noise—literal, body-shaking, soul-draining noise.

Sirens. Car alarms. Yelling. Street chaos. That was my normal.

Now? I live in a suburb of Minnesota where the loudest thing on my block is a wild turkey beefing with a rabbit in my backyard.

This episode explores what happens to the body, the brain, and the spirit when chronic noise becomes your baseline—and how, for many of us, that noise was never just “city life.” It was violence by design.

We unpack the science behind chronic noise exposure, the policy choices that have targeted poor and marginalized communities, and how our mental health suffers when our nervous systems never get to clock out.

We also talk about how KindPath is building tech that understands environmental trauma—so we’re not just reacting to symptoms, but designing support that accounts for the chaos people are trying to survive.

What You’ll Learn:

* Why chronic noise exposure is a public health issue, not a personality quirk

* The mental health effects of environmental noise, including anxiety, depression, and cognitive strain

* How urban zoning and systemic racism make noise exposure a class and race issue

* What peace feels like after a life of noise—and why silence can feel unsafe

* How KindPath is reimagining behavioral health by factoring in environmental stressors

Cited Sources:

* Basner et al. (2014). Auditory and non-auditory effects of noise on health. The Lancet.

* World Health Organization (2018). Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region.

* Clark & Paunovic (2018). Environmental noise and mental health: A systematic review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 15(11), 2400.

Listen Now:

Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else you listen

Quote to Remember:

“If your nervous system is always bracing, KindPath becomes your soft landing. We don’t pretend to quiet the whole world—we build something that whispers when everything else is shouting.”

Episode Length: ~5 minutes

Theme: Innovation, empathy, ethical tech, trauma-informed design, inclusive mental health

Listen if you’ve ever wondered:

* Why tech feels so cold even when it’s meant to support people.

* How innovation can uplift—or exploit—marginalized communities.

* What it means to build with people instead of for them.

Episode Summary:

In this powerful five-minute episode, I unmask the illusion of “innovation” as we know it—and ask what’s left when we build without empathy. Spoiler alert: it’s not progress.

We unpack why most digital health tools fail the very people they claim to serve, the truth about how your data is used (or abused), and how trauma-informed, human-centered design isn’t a luxury—it’s a responsibility. This isn’t a takedown. It’s a calling-in.

Because innovation without empathy?

That’s just extraction.

Key Stats Mentioned:

* Only 3% of U.S. digital health startups serve underserved populations (Rock Health, 2024)

* 50%+ of mental health apps share user data with third parties, often without full consent (Mozilla Foundation, 2023)

* 1 in 3 U.S. adults experience anxiety or depression; only 1 in 10 feel adequately supported by digital tools (Harvard School of Public Health, 2024)

Topics We Cover:

* The empathy deficit in tech

* The real-world consequences of scale-first thinking

* What trauma-informed, justice-driven innovation looks like

* Building with care, not just code

Let this episode hold you if:

* You’re a founder, builder, or creative who wants to lead with heart

* You’ve ever felt unseen inside a product that claimed to support your healing

* You believe the future of tech should be warm, not just fast

✨ Favorite Line:

“Nobody ever healed from being optimized.”

Links + Mentions:

* Rock Health: Equity in Digital Health Report (2024)

* Mozilla Foundation’s Privacy Not Included (2023)

* Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Mental Health Data (2024)

If you loved this episode…

🎧 Subscribe, leave a review, or forward it to a fellow builder who needs to hear it.

Let’s be real: most apps weren’t built for brains like mine. Or maybe yours.

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on what actually goes into designing digital spaces for neurodivergent folks—and why a few rounded buttons and an accessibility statement don’t cut it.

We talk:

* Why “good” UX isn’t always safe UX

* How executive function, sensory load, and shame all sneak into design

* What deep UX actually looks like when you build with neurodivergence in mind

* How the very things that support ND users make apps better for everyone else too (spoiler: curb cut effect, baby)

This one’s part product nerd-out, part call-to-action, and part love letter to people who’ve ever opened an app and instantly wanted to scream.

If you’re a designer, builder, or neurodivergent human who’s tired of being expected to “just push through” bad UX—this is for you.

Tap in. Let’s unmask the design gap.

—

Mentioned in this episode:

→ My company: KindPath Health

→ Curb cut effect, trauma-informed design, and why white space is sacred

→ Polyvagal Theory and the product implications of a dysregulated nervous system

📩 Want to co-build with me? DM me or reply to this post. Always looking for neurodivergent designers and behavioral scientists to collaborate with.

Hey friends—

This week, I’m talking about something I know so many of us are feeling right now, even if we can’t quite name it.

The world is loud. Politically. Medically. Emotionally.

Medicaid is being gutted. Healthcare tech is racing to build solutions that don’t always include us. The current administration is passing executive orders that strip care and access from the most vulnerable. And in the middle of all that, I’m going through neuropsych testing in my 40s—trying to understand my brain while the system around me keeps shifting.

If your nervous system has been feeling:

* like you’re on high alert all the time,

* like your brain is buffering while the world keeps refreshing,

* like even the smallest things feel hard right now—

This episode is for you.

We talk about:

* The contradiction of Medicaid cuts alongside “equity” data projects

* The reality of going through neuropsych evaluation as an adult

* How policy instability lands in our bodies, not just our inboxes

* What it means to regulate in a world that keeps destabilizing

And most importantly:

Why your response to all of it is not a sign of weakness—it’s your nervous system telling the truth.

Take what you need. Leave the rest. And if it helps, forward it to someone else whose nervous system might need to hear:

You’re not broken. You’re responding to a world that rarely makes room for the sensitive, the perceptive, the neurodivergent. And that matters.

—Melody

What happens when you’re trying to build a mental health tech company… while raising a 10-year-old Pokémon-obsessed CapCut wizard who does long division for fun?

In this episode of Unmasked, Melody takes you inside her chaotic, hilarious, and heart-filled world as a neurodivergent founder and mom to a neurodivergent kid (aka Miles, aspiring YouTuber and fraction prodigy).

From the realities of fundraising as a Black woman building something that’s never been done, to calming meltdowns while mid-Zoom pitch, Melody shares the truth about what it really means to be wired differently in a world that expects perfection—and why she’s building KindPath for the both of them.

💡 Topics Covered

* Parenting a brilliant, intense, neurodivergent 10-year-old

* The ADHD vs. math prodigy dynamic

* Fundraising with executive dysfunction (and granola bar guilt)

* Building a company while overstimulated

* Why emotional support shouldn’t come after burnout

* Creating space for joy, stimming, spirals, and softness

🔥 Favorite Quotes

“He’s trying to be a YouTube sensation. I’m just trying to remember if I ate.”

“Sometimes I’m a brilliant founder. Other times I’m a feral squirrel with Wi-Fi. Both are valid.”

“We deserve to be seen—in our stims, our spirals, our strengths.”

📣 Shoutout

Miles, my forever co-founder in chaos—subscribe to his YouTube channel and witness the CapCut greatness unfold.

In this bonus episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on something I think we need to talk about a lot more in health tech: what it really means to define the problem space—especially when you’re building from lived experience.

As someone who’s bipolar, autistic, and has ADHD, I don’t just experience the world differently—I build differently. I talk about how that shapes the way I approach innovation, why rushing to solutions without honoring the deeper emotional and behavioral patterns just doesn’t cut it, and how slowing down has actually made my work stronger.

If you’ve ever felt the pressure to build fast, or you’re sitting in the middle of a messy, not-yet-clear insight—this one’s for you.

Here’s what I get into:

* Why so many health tech tools solve symptoms, not root causes

* The emotional and cognitive load that gets ignored in product design

* What I learned by pausing before building KindPath

* Five questions I ask myself before designing any feature

* Why “edge cases” aren’t edge cases at all—they’re people like us

A line that sums it up:

“You don’t have to build fast to prove your worth. You just have to build true.”

Want to connect or share your story?

I’d love to hear from you. Seriously.

→ Visit kindpath.health

→ Email me at [email protected]

→ Follow @kindpathhealthincinc

→ Or DM me if you’re building something bold, or just figuring it out as you go

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on one of the most confusing and painful experiences in the mental health journey—what happens when you know something’s going on, but the professionals you turn to for help don’t believe you.

Yep. We’re talking about what it feels like to be gaslit by your own therapist.

I share real stories (including my own), some eye-opening stats, and the silent suffering that happens when our symptoms are minimized, misdiagnosed, or brushed off entirely—especially for folks who are neurodivergent, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, or all of the above.

You’ll hear about what it does to your self-trust, how we start editing our truth just to be taken seriously, and why so many of us stop reaching out for help altogether.

Then, I introduce KindPath—our behavioral health app designed to help you track your emotional patterns, get support in real time, and generate insights your provider can actually use. No gaslighting. No guessing. Just real visibility into how you’re really doing.

If you’ve ever left a session thinking, “Wait… was that me or was that them?”—this episode is for you.

🔗 Links & Resources:

* Sign up for early access to KindPath: www.kindpath.health

* Follow KindPath on Threads + Instagram: @kindpathhealthinc

* Article version of this episode: https://substack.com/home/post/p-168681354

* Questions or want to share your story? Email me at [email protected]

🎧 Subscribe and leave a review if this resonated with you—it helps get the word out to others who’ve felt unseen or unheard in their mental health journey.

Note: Names were fictionalized to conceal focus group identities.

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