Director, AI Experience Platform

Journey with us! Combine your career goals and sense of adventure by joining our exciting team of employees. Royal Caribbean Group is pleased to offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, and excellent career development opportunities, each offering unique ways to explore the world.

We are proud to be the vacation-industry leader with global brands - including Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises - the most innovative fleet and private destinations, and the best people. Together, we are dedicated to turning the vacation of a lifetime into a lifetime of vacations for our guests.

The Royal Caribbean Group's Global E-Commerce Team has an exciting career opportunity for a full time Director, AI Experience Platform reporting to the Senior Director, Digital Product.

The position is onsite and based in Downtown, Miami, Florida.

The position is also not eligible for work authorization sponsorship.

Position Summary:

Every year, travelers visit 277 web pages before booking a single trip. They cross-reference prices on six platforms. They screenshot itineraries to share in group chats. They escalate to contact centers to change a reservation that should take two clicks. The $1.7 trillion travel industry runs on friction. Friction is what AI was built to eliminate.

Royal Caribbean Group is building a conversational AI that doesn't add another channel to the noise. It collapses all channels into a single, coherent relationship between the guest and the brand. A single conversation that carries context across every touchpoint, powered by an intelligence that knows who you are, what you've done, and what you need next. On the website, in the app, via SMS, or on the ship.

Today, the ecosystem is being built for the world's largest cruise fleet. But the ambition extends further: a guest base that spends across the full travel and hospitality ecosystem. The addressable market is not "cruise AI" - it is travel itself.

We are looking for a Director of Product to define that future. You will lead a team across three strategic tracks: integrating what exists, building what doesn't, and expanding into adjacent markets. AI-native travel platforms are emerging with significant venture capital. Your job is to innovate faster and make their addressable market a subset of ours. The window to define what AI means in travel is open. It will not stay open.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Vision & Horizon Leadership

• Own the multi-year product vision across three strategic tracks: current capability adoption, new capability creation, and travel ecosystem expansion
• Define what vacation planning looks like in three to five years and set the innovation agenda to get there before competitors do
• Define the strategic roadmap for the product's evolution beyond cruises into the broader travel and hospitality ecosystem
• Identify and place strategic bets on emerging AI capabilities, testing them in controlled environments before committing full investment
• Identify and evaluate strategic partnerships with travel technology providers, distribution platforms, and AI companies that accelerate the platform's reach into adjacent markets
• Monitor the competitive landscape across AI-native travel platforms, incumbent digital transformations, and emerging distribution models
• Translate competitive intelligence into strategic positioning

People Leadership & Team Development

• Manage and mentor a team of 2 Senior Product Managers (Capability Adoption, Capability Expansion) and 1 Senior Product Analyst
• Own the aggregate outcomes of capability adoption and capability expansion through your Senior Product Managers, keeping both tracks delivering measurable progress while maintaining alignment across the full product roadmap
• Set clear objectives for each team member aligned to their strategic track, and create an environment where all three tracks inform each other
• Develop product talent by providing coaching, growth opportunities, and exposure to enterprise-level strategic thinking
• Build a team culture that balances operational rigor with creative ambition
• Plan for team growth as the initiative scales
• Define the organizational structure needed to support the multi-brand, multi-segment ambition

Enterprise Alignment & Executive Engagement

• Serve as the primary product voice for the AI initiative with executive leadership, including brand presidents, the CDO, CMOs, and the CEO
• Develop and present the multi-year enterprise capital investment case, including scope, sequencing, cost, and projected returns
• Participate in and shape the product scope framework: defining what the core platform owns, what depends on shared enterprise services, and where adjacent initiatives begin
• Lead cross-functional working groups spanning business value, technology, and design, aligning teams on priorities and tradeoffs
• Translate the innovation vision and AI capabilities into language that resonates with financial, operational, and brand audiences.

Product & Platform Strategy

• Confirm the platform architecture supports the full ambition: multi-brand, multi-channel, multi-market, and eventually multi-segment (cruise, hotel, destination, river)
• Drive the strategy for the product as the proactive intelligence layer across the enterprise, embedded in every guest-facing and crew-facing surface
• Define success metrics from operational performance (capability coverage, task completion, deflection rates) to strategic outcomes (TAM expansion, partnership revenue, guest lifetime value)
• Own the product narrative as a category-defining innovation: how the story is told internally to drive organizational momentum and externally to attract talent, partners, and industry recognition

Qualifications and Education:

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field; MBA or equivalent graduate degree preferred

• 10+ years of product management experience, with at least 3 years in a leadership or director-level capacity managing product managers
• Experience building or scaling platform products with ecosystem or marketplace ambitions (multi-sided platforms, partner ecosystems, or multi-segment product portfolios)
• Proven ability to form and execute strategic partnerships with technology companies, distribution platforms, or industry partners
• Deep understanding of AI/ML product strategy, including conversational AI, agentic systems, recommendation engines, or personalization platforms
• Experience developing multi-year investment cases (business cases, board presentations) that secured significant capital allocation
• Strong people leadership: track record of hiring, developing, and retaining high-performing product talent
• Comfort operating at both the C-suite strategic level and the sprint execution level
• Track record of building products in categories that didn't previously exist, or defining new market segments within established industries
• History of identifying and executing strategic bets with incomplete information
• Able to navigate the organizational complexity of an enterprise initiative that spans multiple brand leadership teams and formal governance structures within a publicly traded company
• Comfort operating where no playbook exists
• Experience in travel, hospitality, or large-scale consumer platforms strongly preferred
• Familiarity with competitive dynamics in AI-native platforms, digital travel, or enterprise AI transformation
• Exceptional communication skills: you can make a complex AI strategy clear to a non-technical executive audience

Financial and Quantitative Responsibilities:

• Own the development and defense of the multi-year enterprise CAR, covering all three capability horizons
• Manage the product team budget, including headcount, tooling, and vendor relationships
• Define and track financial metrics: revenue influenced by platform capabilities, cost avoidance through contact center deflection, and incremental revenue from new capability types
• Model TAM expansion scenarios as the product extends into adjacent travel segments.

Agency and Third-Party Submissions: Please note this is a direct search by the Company, and applications through agencies and other third parties will not be accepted, nor will fees be paid for unsolicited resumes. Any unsolicited resumes will be considered the Company's property.

We know there's a lot to consider. As you go through the application process, our recruiters will be glad to provide guidance, and more relevant details to answer any additional questions. Thank you again for your interest in Royal Caribbean Group. We'll hope to see you onboard soon!

It is the policy of the Company to ensure equal employment and promotion opportunity to qualified candidates without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, sexuality, gender identity or expression, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Royal Caribbean Group and each of its subsidiaries prohibit and will not tolerate discrimination or harassment.