Cobb high school grad creates AI software that makes employee scheduling easier

May 21st, 2026

Eighteen-year-old Noah Marbach developed XShift AI to make employee scheduling easier and became an entrepreneur before graduating from Pope High School in Cobb County. (Adi Goldstein, XShift AI, LaShawn Hudson/WABE)

As he prepared to graduate from Pope High School, getting ready for college wasn’t the only thing Noah Marbach had on his mind. The 18-year-old is also focused on running his business, XShift AI.

After being sidelined by soccer injuries, the Cobb County student directed his talents toward creating a workplace tool that makes it easier for managers to schedule employees.

“ I grew up working in the shift-based industry,” Marbach said. “I grew up working in the restaurant industry and in the lifeguarding industry, and I saw firsthand how brutal employee scheduling is for managers in organizations.”

Marbach said managers are spending over 10 hours a week building employee schedules, which comes at a cost to organizations when also factoring in manager burnout, overstaffing, understaffing and employee turnover.

“And I knew I wanted to enter this market,” said Marbach. “But I also knew I couldn’t go up against billion-dollar companies and play the same game as them. So similar to what Netflix did with Blockbuster, I reinvented how the game was played.”

“Most companies that are on the market, pretty much all of them, compete on who can assist managers in building the schedules the best,” Marbach continued. “I asked the question, ‘Why should managers even have to build the schedules at all?’”

Marbach says he works with employees and interns, and says XShift AI has generated revenue and ranked among the Top 100 AI startups in Atlanta, according to F6S. On Thursday’s edition of “Closer Look with Rose Scott,” he discussed his life as a young business owner, his plans to study entrepreneurship at the University of Mississippi starting this fall, and how he hopes to expand XShift AI in the future.