VP, AI Innovation

Description and Requirements
The Team You Will Join
When you join MetLife's Global Technology team, you'll be part of a forward-thinking group dedicated to shaping the future of digital solutions for customers worldwide. You'll develop, maintain and support technology applications and delivery, leveraging AI, automation, and contemporary ways of working to enhance experiences and drive business outcomes. Your work will simplify complex processes, improve tech resiliency, and ensure high-performing, seamless solutions that power life's most important moments. In this dynamic environment, you'll collaborate with talented peers across teams and functions, expanding your skills in impactful ways. Ready to push boundaries and set new industry standards? Join us and help drive the future of technology forward.
The Opportunity
MetLife is seeking a VP, AI Innovation to serve as our enterprise AI strategist and technical visionary, reporting directly to the SVP of Emerging Tech Platforms & Architecture. This is a rare opportunity to shape how one of the world's most trusted insurance and financial services companies harnesses artificial intelligence to better serve 90+ million customers across 40+ markets.
You'll be the bridge between cutting edge AI innovation and enterprise scale impact. On one side, you'll scan the frontier, tracking breakthroughs in generative AI, agentic systems, multimodal models, and automation. On the other, you'll translate that intelligence into clear, prioritized strategies that drive measurable business outcomes: faster claims processing, more personalized customer experiences, smarter underwriting, and operational excellence at scale.
This role combines strategic influence with deep technical credibility. You'll advise senior leadership, guide our AI market intelligence team, and collaborate across product, engineering, and architecture functions to ensure MetLife doesn't just adopt AI, we lead with it responsibly and at scale.
If you're energized by the idea of applying world class AI to protect families, secure retirements, and build financial resilience for millions, this role is for you.
Key Responsibilities
AI Strategy & Market Intelligence

• Continuously scan the external AI landscape-monitoring tech giants, startups, academia, competitors, and vendors for emerging trends (e.g., GenAI, agentic AI, foundation models, automation platforms)
• Synthesize complex AI developments into clear, actionable business guidance tailored to insurance and financial services use cases
• Lead and grow the AI market intelligence team, setting the agenda for what we track, evaluate, and act upon
• Serve as a trusted advisor to the SVP and executive leadership on AI opportunity, risk, and investment strategy

Applied AI & Scientific Leadership

• Define the technical vision for applied AI across high impact domains:
  • Customer Experience: Conversational AI, intelligent routing, sentiment analysis, personalization
  • Claims & Underwriting: Document understanding, fraud detection, risk modeling, automation
  • Operations: Process mining, forecasting, anomaly detection, code generation
  • Knowledge Systems: Search, summarization, question answering, information extraction
• Guide decisions on model architecture, training strategies, evaluation frameworks, and responsible AI standards
• Champion state of the art techniques (e.g., retrieval augmented generation, multimodal learning, model adaptation) while ensuring a clear path to production
• Balance research rigor with business pragmatism-delivering systems that are reliable, scalable, and revenue generating

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Enablement

• Partner horizontally across the Emerging Tech organization:
  • Tools & Experimentation: Identify and pilot emerging AI capabilities
  • Product Management: Translate AI trends into product roadmaps and feature prioritization
  • Delivery & Engineering: Ensure AI solutions are production ready, monitored, and continuously improved
• Act as a bridge between external innovation and internal adoption-contextualizing what's possible and enabling execution at enterprise scale
• Elevate the technical bar across the organization through mentorship, knowledge sharing, and thought leadership

Governance, Quality & Trust

• Establish best practices for:
  • Model evaluation, monitoring, and performance benchmarking
  • Bias detection, robustness testing, and interpretability
  • Responsible AI deployment aligned with regulatory and ethical standards
• Build frameworks that ensure AI systems are trustworthy, explainable, and compliant-critical in a highly regulated industry
• Advise leadership on AI risk management and long term capability building

Thought Leadership & Influence

• Represent MetLife externally with credibility-at AI conferences, industry forums, and research communities
• Build MetLife's reputation as a destination for top AI talent and a leader in responsible AI innovation
• Foster a culture that values scientific depth, engineering excellence, and customer first impact

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in applied AI, machine learning, or data science, with at least 5 years in leadership roles
• Proven track record translating frontier AI research (e.g., LLMs, multimodal models, representation learning) into production systems that drive business value
• Deep technical expertise in one or more of the following:
  • Large language models and generative AI
  • Natural language processing (NLP) and information extraction
  • Multimodal learning and representation learning
  • Forecasting, anomaly detection, and predictive analytics
  • Responsible AI, model evaluation, and governance
• Strategic acumen: Ability to synthesize complex technical trends into clear business implications and executive ready recommendations
• Consulting or advisory background strongly preferred-experience translating external innovation into internal strategy
• Excellent communication skills: Comfortable presenting to C suite executives, technical teams, and cross functional stakeholders
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or related field; Master's or PhD strongly preferred

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at a hyperscaler AI company (e.g., Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI) or leading AI consultancy
• Background in insurance, financial services, or insurtech - understanding of regulatory constraints, risk management, and customer trust
• Familiarity with enterprise AI platforms (e.g., Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, Vertex AI) and MLOps tooling
• Published research or patents in AI/ML domains
• Experience building and scaling high performing technical teams

Location Expectation: This is a hybrid role requiring a minimum of 3 days per week in office.
The expected salary range for this position is $217,500 - $290,000 . This role may also be eligible for annual short-term incentive compensation and stock-based long-term incentives. All incentives and benefits are subject to the applicable plan terms.
Benefits We Offer
Our U.S. benefits address holistic well-being with programs for physical and mental health, financial wellness, and support for families. We offer a comprehensive health plan that includes medical/prescription drug and vision, dental insurance, and no-cost short- and long-term disability. We also provide company-paid life insurance and legal services, a retirement pension funded entirely by MetLife and 401(k) with employer matching, group discounts on voluntary insurance products including auto and home, pet, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and accident insurance, as well as Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and digital mental health programs, parental leave, paid time off, paid holidays, volunteer time off, tuition assistance and much more!
About MetLife
Recognized on Fortune magazine's list of the "World's Most Admired Companies", Fortune World's 25 Best Workplaces™, as well as the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For®, MetLife, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, is one of the world's leading financial services companies; providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to individual and institutional customers. With operations in more than 40 markets, we hold leading positions in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Our purpose is simple - to help our colleagues, customers, communities, and the world at large create a more confident future. United by purpose and guided by our core values - Win Together, Do the Right Thing, Deliver Impact Over Activity, and Think Ahead - we're inspired to transform the next century in financial services. At MetLife, it's #AllTogetherPossible . Join us!
MetLife is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All employment decisions are made without regards to race, color, national origin, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, marital or domestic/civil partnership status, genetic information, citizenship status (although applicants and employees must be legally authorized to work in the United States), uniformed service member or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law ("protected characteristics").
If you need an accommodation due to a disability, please email us at [email protected]. This information will be held in confidence and used only to determine an appropriate accommodation for the application process.
MetLife maintains a drug-free workplace.
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