Jason Alan Snyder
Technologist, futurist, and inventor. Work at the crossroads of AI, ethics, and human agency. Building the trust infrastructure for intelligent systems, ensuring data, consent, and meaning remain intact as machine intelligence accelerates through society.
Break Through
The Noise
Click to play · mouse or arrow keys
Loading headlines... · 3 lives
The Frameworks
Five principles for staying human
Friction Is Form™
Friction is not failure. It is the ignition. It slows us down to the speed of meaning, makes surprise possible, and reminds us we're alive. The architecture of experience is built from resistance, not from ease.
Authorship Over Automation
We are not outputs. We are story-making beings. Prediction diminishes perception. Automation impedes personal growth. Staying human requires reclaiming the ability to revise and reimagine yourself.
The Speed of Meaning
Wonder requires slowness. Rapid information flow diminishes our capacity for feeling. Operate at the pace of presence rather than algorithmic prediction. Slow down on purpose.
Design for Agency
Systems shape behavior. Let's build ones that liberate. Ethical design prioritizes human agency through clarity and choice rather than manipulation. Power returned, not extracted.
Protect the Sacred
Some things cannot be optimized. Wonder and mystery are essential human experiences that must not be reduced or systematized. There is a cost to seamlessness. Protect the parts of yourself that don't compute.
"This is not a philosophy. It's a framework for staying human after friction™."
Writing
All writing →The AI That Kills Us Won't Be Smart. We Will Just Be Lazy.
Apr 2026
The Last Archive: How AI Is Erasing What We Know
IPWatchdog
Mar 2026
MIT Finds 95% of GenAI Pilots Fail Because Companies Avoid Friction
Forbes
Aug 2025
Who Owns Your Imagination? A Catholic Call to Conscience in the Age of AI
Medium
Jun 2025
Architects of the Future: How AI Is Tearing Up the Experiential Marketing Rulebook
The Drum
Mar 2025
Quantum Is Decades Away? Not So Fast
Forbes
Jan 2025
How Quantum Computing Technology Solves Real-World Business Challenges
Fast Company
Feb 2024
Data Might Be Oil, But Consent Is Golden
The Drum
Feb 2024
Generational Trauma Is Shaping AI: How Leaders Can Create a Better Future
Fast Company
2024
Cosmic Synthesis: Uniting Cosmology, Spirituality, and Technology
Medium
Nov 2023
Data Humanization: 6 Ways to Maximize Consumer Empowerment and Trust
The Drum
May 2023
God in the Machine
Medium
Jun 2020
The Book
Human After
Friction™
A manifesto for staying real in a world optimized past recognition. From moral architect and technologist Jason Alan Snyder: a piercing, poetic, and prescriptive blueprint for restoring what optimization erased.
This is not a rejection of technology. It's a reclamation of humanity.
Represented by Michael Bourret, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret
Speaking
Talks that interrupt
Human After Friction
A poetic and piercing blueprint for staying human in a system built to erase us.
Friction as a Design Principle
Friction isn't a flaw in the system, it's what makes it real.
The Automation of Identity
You are not your data. You are not your pattern.
Designing for Agency
Systems either return power, or extract it. There is no neutral.
Wonder as Disruption
Awe is not a luxury, it's the architecture of the soul.
The Ethics of Optimization
Optimization may serve machines, but it flattens humans.
Stages
World Summit AI
Watch ↗Amsterdam 2025, Main Stage Headliner
"Time Worth Wasting: Preserving Meaning in a Predictive World"
Milken Institute
Global Conference 2025
United Nations
AI consent and transparency
IPWatchdog LIVE
2026, Featured Keynote
Advertising Week Asia
Singapore 2017
The Generator @ Babson College
AI/ML Empowerment Lab
Podcasts
- Artists and Robots: When Human Creativity Meets Machine Intelligence
Marketing, Machines & Mischief · Matthew Newell & Chris Stone
- The Rise of AI Deepfake Music
Momentum & Matters · Momentum Worldwide
- The Crashing Waves of AI
Acxiom Real Talk About Marketing · Dustin Raney & Kyle Hollaway
- The Rise of Digital Twins in Healthcare
xCures: AI and Healthcare
- How to Engage a Dragon
Acxiom Real Identity
- Building Ethical AI That Respects Human Judgment and Consent
Mission Matters
- Featured throughout the series — hearable technology and the future of sound
Now Hear This! · Justin Lockey / Creative Kin
Inventions
Full patent portfolio →2000
World FirstFirst Mobile Coupon
Created the first mobile coupon for Coca-Cola while serving as digital agency of record. Built at the intersection of mobile, commerce, and brand, before any of those words meant what they mean now.
View patents →
2007
Acquired $5.5MJAGTAG
Patented mobile ambient information system. The visual search engine before visual search existed. 30+ patents across US, EP, and WO jurisdictions. Things like Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens couldn't work without these inventions. Acquired by Augme Technologies in 2011 for $5.5M.
View patents →
2012
CES 2014 + 2015Luci Solar Lantern
Inflatable solar lantern replacing kerosene for 5M+ people worldwide. 3M+ tons CO₂ prevented. CES Innovation Award 2014 and 2015. Featured in WIRED, NYT, at Davos.
View patents →
2013
PatentedDUETI Platform
Distributed, Unfolding, Embedded Transaction and Inventory system. Cloud-based, site-agnostic purchasing and commerce-enabling media distribution. 3 patents filed across US, WO, and CA.
View patents →
2020
PatentedSuperTruth AI Engine
AI orchestration engine built on ALDR: Matrix Exponential Attention, Self-Adjusting Decay Control, and Graph-Laplacian Memory Networks. 200+ page patent portfolio across 6 priority filings.
View patents →
Founded
Companies and ventures
1992
Est. 1992Evil Robot MFG. Corp.
Founded at age 22. The original company and still the core. Three decades of invention, experimentation, and building things that shouldn't exist yet.
2000
ClosedDeepFry
Membership organization for convergent media professionals. Closed. While running DeepFry, served as digital agency of record for Coca-Cola and PowerAde, produced the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics digital experience, and did work for the E-World Cup.
2007
AcquiredJAGTAG Inc.
Founded to commercialize the mobile ambient information patent portfolio. Became a foundational company in mobile marketing. Acquired by Augme Technologies in 2011 for $5.5M.
2010
2010–2012Duomentis
Digital invention and innovation firm. Built proprietary platforms and IP for Google, P&G, Publicis Group, and Adtheorent.
2012
AcquiredMPOWERD
Manufactured and marketed Luci. Brought sustainable solar light to 50+ countries. Built on the belief that clean energy is a human right, not a premium.
2020
ActiveSuperTruth
The trust infrastructure company for healthcare AI. Consent-driven data orchestration, health-data integrity, and the prevention of data decay. Acquired imaware, 2024.
2025
ActiveArtists & Robots
Creative intelligence studio blending human creativity with intelligent systems. Next generation experiential and AI-driven brand environments. Co-founded with Heather Salkin.
Recognition
AI Power 50
Adweek · 2026
CES Innovation Award
CES · 2015
CES Innovation Award
CES · 2014
Agency Innovator
The Internationalist · 2015
Technology Agency All-Star
Adweek · 2015
Campaign Tech Awards
Campaign · 2017
Executive Board Member
Fast Company · 2022
AI Committee Chair
4A's · 2024
Press
All coverage →2026
AI Power 50: Shaping the Next Phase of Advertising
2015
Can't Make It to the U.S. Open? Send a Robot in Your Place
2025
MIT Finds 95% of GenAI Pilots Fail Because Companies Avoid Friction
2014
Meet the Embodiment of the New Agency Creative
2025
Momentum Worldwide's Jason Snyder Named Chief AI Officer
2024
How Quantum Computing Technology Solves Real-World Business Challenges
Executive Profile: Jason Alan Snyder, Momentum Worldwide
2026
The Last Archive: How AI Is Erasing What We Know
2024
Data Might Be Oil, But Consent Is Golden
“The complete epitome of the new agency creative. A catalyst to a new way of thinking.”
Digiday
Jon Hamm, CCO, Momentum Worldwide
“One of 30 agency innovators transforming our concepts of a contemporary advertising agency business.”
The Internationalist
Agency Innovators, 2015
“One of 50 leaders shaping the next phase of AI in advertising and marketing.”
Adweek
AI Power 50, 2026
Adweek · Wall Street Journal · Forbes · Digiday · Fast Company · Bloomberg · The Drum · IPWatchdog · CBC · The Guardian · Business Insider · and more
All press →Connect
Let's Rebuild
What the System
Smoothed Out.
Media inquiries, speaking engagements, collaboration, or just something you want to say.
On the Record
Jason Alan Snyder
“Friction is not failure. It is the ignition. Remove all of it and you get a flat line.”
, Jason Alan Snyder · Human After Friction™
“AI can generate your story. It cannot author it. The difference is everything. And everything is the part you keep.”
, Jason Alan Snyder · On AI and creativity
“Data is oil. Consent is the only thing that makes it yours. Without it, you are not the owner. You are the deposit.”
, Jason Alan Snyder · The Drum, 2024
“We are not optimizing toward intelligence. We are optimizing away from humanity. These are not the same direction and we have confused them badly.”
, Jason Alan Snyder · World Summit AI, Amsterdam 2025
“Your digital twin is making decisions without you. This was always the plan. You just weren't told.”
, Jason Alan Snyder · xCures: AI and Healthcare
“The most dangerous feature of AI is not its power. It is its speed. It collapses the space between question and answer. That space was where you used to think.”
, Jason Alan Snyder · The Speed of Meaning framework
“Systems either return power or extract it. There is no neutral design. Every interface is a position.”
, Jason Alan Snyder · Design for Agency framework
“We were warned about the machines taking our jobs. Nobody warned us about them taking our opinions.”
, Jason Alan Snyder · On automation
“The algorithm does not hate you. Indifference is worse.”
, Jason Alan Snyder · On AI and agency
“Authenticity is not a feature you add. It is what is left when you stop removing things.”
, Jason Alan Snyder · Human After Friction™