Director, AI Experience Platform

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd•Miami, FL

2d•Onsite

About The Position

Royal Caribbean Group is seeking a full-time Director, AI Experience Platform to join their Global E-Commerce Team. This role reports to the Senior Director, Digital Product and is based onsite in Miramar, Florida. The company is a leader in the vacation industry with global brands like Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea Cruises. The Director will be instrumental in defining the future of AI in the travel industry, moving beyond just cruise AI to encompass the entire travel and hospitality ecosystem. The goal is to create a conversational AI that collapses all channels into a single, coherent relationship between the guest and the brand, carrying context across every touchpoint. This AI should understand the guest's history and anticipate their future needs, whether on the website, in the app, via SMS, or on the ship. The position requires innovating faster than emerging AI-native travel platforms and expanding the company's addressable market.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Business, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
10+ years of product management experience.
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.
Exceptional communication skills: you can make a complex AI strategy clear to a non-technical executive audience.

Nice To Haves

MBA or equivalent graduate degree preferred.
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.

Responsibilities

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.