Lead AI Consultant

Lead AI Consultant

At Merkle, a dentsu company, we power the experience economy. Whether we're building the next great app, running CRM at scale for global brands, delivering technology architectures that support millions of users, or providing world-class data, identity, and insights solutions, it's all in the name of crafting experiences that set brands apart from the competition. Backed by dentsu's legacy of innovation and creativity originating in Japan, we've spent over 35 years helping brands build loyalty, drive growth, and connect meaningfully with their audiences.

We've been named a global "Leader" by top industry analyst firms in categories as wide-ranging as digital transformation and commerce, experience design, engineering and technology integration, digital marketing, data science, CRM and loyalty, and customer data management.

This position is open in Portugal, the Czech Republic, and Serbia.

Most organisations treat AI consulting as a support function — specialists called in after decisions have been made. This position rejects that model. As Lead AI Consultant, you operate as a forward-deployed practitioner: embedded in client engagements from the earliest strategic conversations, present when problems are still being framed, and accountable through to delivery. You own the translation of practice direction into structured client work and measurable outcomes.

Client-facing delivery is half the mandate. The other half is internal: from your first weeks, you lead enablement programmes designed to raise AI literacy across Merkle's own workforce. We transform ourselves before we offer to transform anyone else.

What sets this role apart is its orientation toward the future. We are not hiring engineers who optimise within the current state. AI is, by reasonable estimation, the most consequential technology for restructuring how organisations coordinate action, route information, and allocate decision-making authority. Linear hierarchies, siloed channels, static approval chains — these were designed for an information environment that started to shift.

The person who thrives here sees that shift with clarity, thinks through its second-order consequences, and helps clients prepare for organisational forms that do not yet have names. Mindset comes first; technical proficiency without it is insufficient.

• Act as primary consultant on AI engagements, advising senior client stakeholders on AI transformation strategy, AI architecture, and implementation.
• Develop AI strategies, solution concepts, and technical specifications calibrated to each client's organisational reality, not templated frameworks applied regardless of context.
• Translate business requirements into technical specifications, and technical constraints into language stakeholders can act on. Both directions matter equally.
• Facilitate client workshops from AI discovery through implementation planning; contribute to pitches and business development as a subject matter expert.

• Anticipate how AI will reshape organisational structures, information flows, and decision-making over the next two to five years — advising clients with concrete, time-bound roadmaps.
• Build forward-looking scenarios that connect emerging capabilities (agentic systems, real-time retrieval, autonomous workflows) to concrete operational change.
• Challenge inherited assumptions about hierarchies and operating models. Propose AI-native alternatives grounded in feasibility and organisational readiness.

• Support & Lead in-house training and enablement programmes from week one, designing materials calibrated from foundational concepts to advanced agentic workflow design.
• Serve as a visible example of AI-first practice. Cultural change does not come from slide decks; it comes from colleagues who work differently and produce better results.

• Contribute to the design of AI solutions — agent orchestration, retrieval-augmented generation, multi-agent coordination — strategically and structurally, not only at implementation level.
• Evaluate and ope rationalise new AI tools, frameworks, and platforms as they emerge. The expectation is a live understanding of the state…