Jeff DeMarrais: Bridging the AI Velocity Gap

Jeff DeMarrais, SVP and Chief Communications Officer at Cognizant, shares insights on how corporate communicators can stop defending legacy PR methods and start using AI to unlock measurable business value. Having spent his career driving communication strategy across tech and media powerhouses—from NBC and GE to IBM and Cognizant—Jeff is at the forefront of bridging the "velocity gap" between enterprise AI investment and actual business outcomes.In this episode, Jeff joins Andrew Bleeker to discuss why defending traditional PR workflows is the fastest way to get left behind. Together, they explore how Cognizant ran a Guinness World Record-breaking vibe coding event, how multi-agent digital twins are revolutionizing executive communications, and why AI-powered "borrowed knowledge" is actually creating more demand for entry-level talent rather than replacing it.In this episode:Closing the AI Velocity Gap: Why enterprise leaders must shift from casual experimentation and "token maxing" to structured implementation that delivers clear ROI.Building Digital Twins and Custom Agents: How Cognizant uses multi-agent systems to replicate authentic executive voices and proprietary tools like "Fortune Teller" and "Agency in a Box" to identify media white space and scale PESO comms models.The Russian Nesting Doll Metric: Why traditional clip packs are just "data exhaust" and how to link media coverage to message pull-through, quarterly business reviews, and budget growth.AI-Enabled Early Careers: Why capturing enterprise institutional memory allows recent college graduates to bypass years of routine data gathering and perform higher-level strategic tasks on day one.Personal Sandbox Experimentation: Why communicators should test tools on low-stakes personal projects—like Jeff's automated fantasy football blog—to build coding confidence and ask better questions of tech partners.