Director of AI Innovation and Communications

Job Profile:

Administrative Operations Specialist 5

Job Family:

Administrative Operations Time Type:

Full time Apply before 11:59 PM Arizona time the day before the posted End Date.

Minimum Qualifications:

Bachelor's degree and ten (10) years of experience appropriate to the area of assignment/field; OR, Any equivalent combination of experience and/or training from which comparable knowledge, skills and abilities have been achieved.

Job Profile

Summary:

Provides leadership and oversight in planning, managing, developing, and evaluating complex departmental strategy, initiatives and activities.

Job Description:

Salary Range: $160,000-$175,000 per year; DOE Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how communications teams discover stories, conduct research, create and distribute content, monitor issues and understand audiences. It is also a defining area of ASU research, teaching and public impact. Media Relations & Strategic Communications (MRSC) is seeking a Director of AI Innovation and Communications to help the department apply AI responsibly across its work and strengthen how ASU's AI expertise, strategy and impact are communicated to external audiences.

Media Relations & Strategic Communications is the central communications team for Arizona State University, one of the largest public research universities in the country. ASU is a new type of American university, one grounded in both excellence and access.

ASU is an R1 research university with more than $1 billion in annual research expenditures and is a national leader in microelectronics, engineering, space exploration, climate and sustainability, and more. In a given year, 200,000 people enroll at ASU either in person or online.

The Director of AI Innovation and Communications will report to the Vice President for Media Relations & Strategic Communications.

The successful candidate will help MRSC:

Develop and lead a department-wide AI communications and innovation strategy. Identify and prioritize opportunities across media relations, ASU News, strategic communications, presidential communications, visual communications, broadcast, social media, audience development and distribution.

Partner with MRSC teams to identify, test and implement AI-enabled approaches that enhance their work. Potential applications may include story discovery and background research; media targeting and identification of niche outlets, journalists, podcasts and creators; media pitch development; issue and trend monitoring; message and scenario analysis; and content adaptation and distribution.

Modernize and enhance daily workflows through responsible use of AI. Reduce repetitive work and expand staff capacity while preserving human judgment, editorial standards, accuracy and accountability.

Build AI fluency and adoption across MRSC. Provide training, coaching, shared resources, demonstrations and practical playbooks that meet employees at different levels of experience and comfort.

Serve as the strategic and functional lead for MRSC AI initiatives. Define user needs, use cases, requirements, content standards, evaluation criteria, governance and adoption in partnership with the teams responsible for technical architecture, development, deployment and maintenance.

Guide the continued development and evaluation of public-facing AI experiences. Work with ASU News, visual communications, AI developers, Enterprise Technology, Enterprise Brand Strategy and Management and other relevant stakeholders to make authoritative ASU News and MRSC content easier for public audiences to access and understand.

Lead the development of AI-assisted research, monitoring and knowledge-management capabilities. Help MRSC identify stories and experts across ASU, track developments in higher…