Jessica Marie, Founder and CEO of Omnia Technique Group, leads her firm on the intersection of know-how, ethics, and impactful management. With a concentrate on “marketing as truth” and a imaginative and prescient of know-how serving humanity, Jessica challenges the established order in tech communication and strategic innovation. On this interview, she shares insights on navigating the complexities of AI, balancing innovation with moral concerns, and the way tech leaders can foster actual societal change by way of daring thought management. Learn on for a deeper look into her strategy to shaping the way forward for know-how.
In your imaginative and prescient, thought management performs a transformative position. What are some ways in which you consider tech leaders can transcend conventional thought management to genuinely encourage societal change and foster extra profound public engagement?
Lots of at this time’s so-called “thought leadership” efforts quantity to little greater than echo chambers: the identical concepts recirculated in boring press releases that no person reads, or three-minute convention displays. It’s no shock that most individuals are tuning out. What they’re drawn to, as an alternative, are platforms like long-form podcasts—two or three hours of actual dialog that dives beneath surface-level speaking factors and addresses complicated subjects with unvarnished honesty.
Tech leaders who need to transcend this outdated, superficial mannequin have to let go of the worry of being controversial. By definition, true thought management challenges entrenched concepts. If you happen to’re hedging each assertion, watering down opinions, or scrambling to not offend anybody, you’re simply including to the noise. As an alternative, boldness—paired with real curiosity and willingness to be taught—is what captures folks’s consideration. Meaning being ready for pushback, for misunderstandings, and sometimes for outright disagreement. However that’s the value of chopping by way of the fluff and providing one thing actual.
Leaders can even deepen engagement by being unafraid of nuance. We dwell in a world that craves depth, but most public statements are bullet factors designed to suit a social media submit. If you happen to can converse or write in a manner that embraces complexity—discussing not simply the shiny prospects of a brand new know-how, but additionally its limitations, trade-offs, and ethical weight—you’ll discover an viewers hungry for that candor. Lengthy-form discussions reveal what issues: the way you arrived at your viewpoint, what you realized from failures, and why your answer may really enhance lives.
Even seemingly easy improvements can drive profound societal shifts. A tech startup that introduces a less complicated file-sharing device is, at some stage, difficult the outdated manner of doing issues. The distinction between commonplace and transformative thought management is the willingness to current these adjustments as a part of an even bigger story—and to take action with conviction. That may imply spelling out precisely why the present system is damaged, how the brand new strategy addresses it, and what it would take to maneuver ahead responsibly. Sure, it’s riskier than publishing a well mannered press launch, however it’s the one solution to foster the type of dialogue that results in actual societal influence.
Your philosophy of “marketing as truth” is a robust and unconventional strategy in an trade usually pushed by buzzwords and surface-level messaging. How did this philosophy evolve, and the way do you implement it when guiding firms to craft their narratives authentically?
“Marketing as truth” started as a blunt response to the infinite string of generic messaging that’s normalized in enterprise tech and cybersecurity. In every single place I appeared, firms had been too busy messaging to their competitors, not their clients, and even higher, extra “hacks” to look algorithms, slightly than partaking actual people with actual issues. Firms appeared extra eager about stuffing their communications with acronyms, buzzwords, and platitudes that left me questioning, “Is anyone actually reading—or believing—this?” That realization sparked a brand new course for me: it’s time for a completely new strategy.
However championing straight discuss just isn’t for the faint of coronary heart; it calls for a radical rethinking of threat.
I purposely keep away from utilizing the phrase “authentic,” as a result of even that time period has been drained of which means by overuse. At Omnia Technique Group, we ask founders and leaders to look at their very own urge for food for threat. It takes guts to be candid. It takes guts to critique your trade’s sacred cows (and your individual), and say one thing that’s really significant. It takes guts to carry an actual opinion about what your know-how solves—and what it doesn’t. But it’s exactly this boldness that separates firms who genuinely join with their audiences from those that mix into the numerous different firms saying the identical factor.
After I work with firms, step one is to banish the concept that we have to use the identical phrases and sound like everybody else simply to “show up in Google search”. Moderately than defaulting to the same old speak about “industry-leading” options, we dig into the founders’ core motivations, the challenges they’ve confronted (skilled and private), and even the failures that formed their merchandise. We then flip these sincere conversations into content material that holds a perspective—whether or not meaning admitting a product’s limitations or calling out complacency within the trade. By intentionally taking these dangers, leaders show they don’t have anything to cover. And that actual, clear strategy is what creates the type of loyalty and credibility that no AI-driven “hack” can replicate.
You converse passionately about know-how as a servant to humanity. How do you navigate the stability between innovation and moral concerns when advising leaders, significantly in fields as complicated as AI and cybersecurity?
I consider know-how ought to serve humanity and never the opposite manner round. When advising leaders, I usually begin with a easy query: ‘Will we use technology, or will technology use us?’ It’s not simply theoretical—we’re already seeing know-how form habits in ways in which don’t serve our highest good. We’re seeing a flood of laws—over 120 AI-related payments in Congress, state-level actions in 45 states, and the EU’s first complete AI Act—however regulation alone can’t seize the deeper societal, psychological, and even non secular implications of those applied sciences. How can we successfully regulate what we don’t but perceive?
An excessive amount of of our present AI discourse is caught in a slender loop—debating jobs automated, cash saved, or moral traces crossed. Sure, these matter, however they barely scratch the floor of what AI and rising tech imply for society. There’s a deeper dimension—societal, psychological, and non secular concerns beneath the present conversations. How we deal with that larger dialog will decide whether or not these improvements in the end assist us evolve and broaden or simply feed into one other wave of hype and confusion.
Typically, I’m wondering if it’s all a part of a broader human narrative—one which intersects with our values, our emotional well-being, and even our sense of objective. This implies going past secure, predictable ‘ethics checkboxes.’ How may AI change the best way we perceive ourselves? How may it form {our relationships}, our tradition, and even our perception methods? These questions instantly influence how an organization positions its merchandise, trains its workforce, and addresses public considerations.
AI and automation are reshaping enterprise landscapes at an unprecedented tempo. What long-term impacts do you foresee on organizational buildings and workforce dynamics, and the way can firms put together for this shift with out sacrificing human-centered values?
The frenzy to embrace each AI and automation is smart—many instruments are massively bettering on how work will get finished. However there’s a important distinction that impacts how organizations ought to put together: whereas primary automation follows predetermined guidelines, AI-powered automation requires high-quality knowledge to make clever choices. With out clear, organized knowledge, even essentially the most subtle AI methods will produce nothing greater than flashy misfires.
My LinkedIn feed is affected by “2025 will be the year of AI agents,” posts, but it’s extra prone to be the 12 months organizations scramble to get their knowledge home so as. That course of—establishing clear knowledge methods, making certain company-wide knowledge literacy, and refining AI maturity—will likely be far more difficult than merely rolling out one other chatbot or generative mannequin.
We’re already seeing automation take root in every single place: digital assistants area routine questions, AI-driven platforms deal with outbound gross sales efforts, and software program instruments summarize lengthy discussions or schedule complete calendars. This might sound spectacular, however for true transformation, firms can’t skip the exhausting work of clarifying how and why knowledge is collected, saved, and used. “Garbage in, garbage out” stays a common rule, and also you merely can’t spin crap knowledge into AI gold.
And naturally, automation has been reshaping work for the reason that Industrial Revolution – from steam-powered looms changing handweaving to meeting traces reworking manufacturing. At this time’s AI and digital automation are merely the newest chapter on this centuries-long story. Like earlier waves of automation, they may eradicate some jobs whereas creating completely new ones. Many repetitive duties are prime candidates for AI-driven workflows, however this additionally opens up alternatives for folks to develop new expertise that demand deeper analytical thought, contextual consciousness, and the type of human judgment know-how nonetheless can’t replicate.
For leaders, this in the end means getting critical about knowledge and folks on the similar time. Earlier than rolling out superior AI initiatives, organizations ought to spend money on knowledge integrity, strong coaching applications, and techniques that align AI developments with real human-centered values. That features reskilling staff to allow them to thrive in roles the place they improve, slightly than compete with, AI. The people who’re in a position to 10x their work by changing into energy customers of AI would be the winners.
