Measuring Human Emotion with AI: Harrison Kennedy on Building ReFresh

Before he was a VC-backed founder, Harrison Kennedy was walking for Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent, and Tiffany & Co., a teenager from the Gold Coast suddenly living a global modeling career. When COVID hit, that world stopped. What began as a mental health podcast with a friend became Really Mental, a media company backed by Amazon, reaching 25 million people and hundreds of millions of collective followers.Now, Harrison’s building ReFresh, an emotional intelligence platform that helps companies detect how their people are feeling. Using AI models that analyse tone, text, and behavioural signals across tools like Slack and Google Workspace, ReFresh helps organisations measure mental wellbeing, burnout risk, and compliance, all while keeping employees anonymous.In this episode of In The Blink of AI, Georgie Healy and Harrison talk about the evolution from creator to founder, how AI can be used to understand humans rather than replace them, and what it really means to build a values-driven company. Harrison shares lessons on patience, communication, and curiosity, and why in a world that’s more “connected” than ever, loneliness is still one of tech’s biggest unsolved problems.Resources🙋‍♂️ Harrison Kennedy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrison-kennedy-81b7171a1/💡 ReFresh: https://www.refr-esh.com/🎧 Really Mental (Podcast): https://pods.to/reallymentalIn the Blink of AI is made possible by our wonderful partnersDeelFounders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders.It’s why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast.Visit https://www.deel.com/dayone ✨ Connect with Georgie HealyWeekly Substack: https://georgiehealy.substack.com/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georginahealy/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georginahealytech/The Day One NetworkIn The Blink of AI is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.Sign up to get your weekly insights into the up-and-coming AI startups: https://dayone.fm/newsletter Mentioned in this episode:Deel x PX_Post IntroVanta Ad_BAI Jul25Vanta Ad_BAI Jul25Vanta Ad_BAI Jul25