AI Lead – Agentic & Conversational AI

Introduction At IBM, we believe technology shapes the world. We’re a catalyst for that innovation. We’re driving change that improves businesses, society, and the human experience. Our Marketing, Communications & Corporate Social Responsibility (MCC) team tells this story. We shape IBM’s brand, capture attention in the market, and share our perspective with clients, partners, the media, and fellow IBMers. On our team, you’ll work with bright, collaborative minds who bring passion and creativity to everything they do. You’ll be part of a culture built on openness, trust, and teamwork. Where your ideas matter and your growth is supported. Join us, and help bring innovation to life.

Your Role And Responsibilities We are building a small, elite AI strike team embedded in the Marketing, Communications, and CSR (MCC) Strategy & Operations team. The mission is to move fast, explore what’s possible with agentic and conversational AI, and prove value quickly—before anything is scaled or productionized elsewhere.

This role leads that squad. You will be a hands‑on AI leader with deep expertise in Large Language Models, conversational AI, and agent design. You will guide rapid experiments, build compelling proof‑of‑concepts, and help senior marketing leaders understand how AI can meaningfully change how work gets done.

This is not a traditional AI platform role, a reporting function, or a research lab. It is a high‑judgment, rapid‑execution role optimized for learning, momentum, and decision‑making.

This Role Is

A hands‑on leader for a small, elite AI delivery team

Focused on agentic AI, conversational experiences, and copilots

Oriented around workflow transformation, not tools for their own sake

Optimized for speed, experimentation, and proof‑of‑value

Embedded directly in MCC Strategy & Operations Team

Closely partnered with senior Marketing, Communications, and CSR leaders

This Role Is NOT

A dashboarding or reporting function

A long‑term AI platform or MLOps ownership role

A research‑only or theory‑heavy AI role

A large team or program management position

Core Responsibilities

Leadership & Execution

Lead a small, high‑trust AI squad focused on rapid delivery

Set clear, time‑boxed missions with explicit learning or go
o‑go outcomes

Balance hands‑on building with technical direction and coaching

Operate with a “build → test → learn → decide” mindset

Optimize for progress and insight, not polish or permanence

Conversational AI & LLM Expertise (Core Focus)

Apply deep understanding of LLM capabilities and constraints, including tokenization and context windows, latency and cost tradeoffs, failure modes and hallucination risks

Design multi‑turn, high‑quality conversational experiences

Manage conversation state, context, and memory deliberately

Create flows that balance strong UX, deterministic logic, and LLM flexibility

Query Understanding, Routing & Agent Selection

Design systems that translate user input into confident routing decisions

Apply intent detection, semantic similarity, and hybrid triage approaches

Decompose complex requests into actionable subtasks

Select and orchestrate agents based on role, context, confidence, and history

Build fallback paths, confidence scoring, and uncertainty handling

Implement guardrails to prevent unsafe, incorrect, or misleading behavior

Agent Design & Orchestration Patterns

Lead hands‑on experimentation with proven agent patterns, including Router / Dispatcher, Planner‑Executor, ReAct, Tool‑calling agents, Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG)

Make pragmatic choices between prompt‑driven and code‑driven controls

Optimize for predictable, explainable behavior, not full autonomy

Design agents that are credible and trusted in an enterprise marketing context

Prompt Engineering & Rapid Iteration

Develop advanced system, developer, and user prompt architectures

Create prompt templates for routing, planning, classification, and tool use

Manage prompt versioning and experimentation

Use constraints, grounding, and structured outputs to reduce hallucinations

Iterate quickly based on live usage and feedback

Lightweight Governance & Enterprise Awareness

Ensure experiments consider safety, bias, explainability, and privacy

Apply governance thoughtfully, without slowing experimentation

Implement basic logging, evaluation, and traceability

Communicate risk, limitations, and tradeoffs clearly to stakeholders

Partnership with MCC Leadership

Translate marketing strategy and business needs into focused AI experiments

Partner with senior marketing leaders as a thought partner and guide

Clearly explain what AI can and cannot do—without hype

Help leaders decide what to pursue further, what to iterate, and what to stop

Leaders are expected to spend time with their teams and clients and therefore are generally expected to be in the workplace a minimum of three days a week, subject to business needs.

Preferred Education Master's Degree

Required Technical And Professional Expertise 8–12+ years in AI, applied ML, software, data, or applied technology roles

Deep, hands‑on experience with LLMs and conversational AI

Strong understanding of agentic workflows and orchestration

Experience operating in ambiguous, fast‑moving environments

Experience with conversational AI platforms or orchestration tools

Exposure to RAG systems, semantic search, or vectorization

Familiarity with enterprise AI considerations and constraints

Experience with tooling such as watsonx.ai, watsonx Orchestrate, or similar platforms

Mindset & Ways of Working

Bias toward action, experimentation, and learning

Comfortable showing early work and iterating in the open

Strong communicator with both technical and non‑technical audiences

Confident making tradeoffs between speed, quality, and risk

Energized by small teams and high accountability

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