AI Innovation Manager

Ocho People; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 112,000 - 147,000; Full time

Job summary

Ocho People in London is seeking an AI Innovation Manager on a six-month contract to lead hands-on AI experiments with a major global payments organisation. You will sit at the intersection of consulting, AI innovation and rapid product delivery.

You will work with Commercial and Operations to identify opportunities, prototype solutions and turn ideas into working pilots. This role emphasises speed, evidence and practical delivery over traditional programme management.

Qualifications

• Experience in technology, digital or AI consulting.
• Strong understanding of how AI can be applied to business problems.
• Hands-on experience with modern AI tools, prototypes or AI-enabled workflows.
• Ability to move quickly from idea to proof of concept.
• Strong problem-solving and structured consulting skills.
• Comfortable working in ambiguous environments.
• Able to engage confidently with business stakeholders without being overly senior or removed from delivery.
• Good understanding of modern software/product delivery approaches.
• Strong commercial awareness and ability to identify where technology can create measurable value.
• Ability to assess different technical approaches rather than defaulting to LLMs for every use case.

Responsibilities

• Identify high-value AI and automation opportunities with business stakeholders.
• Translate business pain points into practical technology solutions.
• Rapidly assess whether Generative AI, Agentic AI, ML, workflow automation, APIs, or existing enterprise tooling is appropriate.
• Define and build rapid proofs of concept and proofs of value.
• Work with the AI Innovation Specialist to turn ideas into prototypes.
• Use modern AI-assisted development approaches to accelerate delivery.
• Test prototypes quickly with real users and gather feedback.
• Define success criteria and measure pilots' value.
• Recommend progression or pivots for ideas.
• Explore new AI tools/platforms and assess value.
• Hand successful pilots into Product/Engineering for productionisation.

Skills

Technology consulting

Hands-on delivery

AI innovations

Prototype development

Stakeholder engagement

Tools

Salesforce Agentforce

AWS Bedrock

Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Suite

Databricks

Snowflake

Cursor

Job description

AI Innovation Manager - Contract

Location: London / Hybrid
Contract: 6 months
IR35: Outside IR35
Rate: Up to £700 per day
Start: October 2026

Ocho is working with a major global payments organisation that is building a new AI Innovation Lab to identify, prototype and validate high-value AI and automation opportunities across its Enterprise business.

This is not a traditional programme, transformation or engineering leadership role.

The focus is on hands-on innovation, rapid delivery and using the latest AI tools and working methods to shorten the product-development lifecycle.

The successful candidate will work directly with business teams to identify problems and opportunities, quickly determine the best technical approach, and help turn those ideas into working prototypes and proofs of value.

The Role

You will sit at the intersection of consulting, AI innovation and rapid product delivery.

The role is highly autonomous and suited to someone who is comfortable moving quickly from an ambiguous business problem to a practical prototype.

You will work closely with Commercial and Operations teams to understand where AI, automation or other emerging technologies can create value, then work alongside a hands-on AI Specialist to rapidly test those ideas.

The emphasis is on speed, experimentation and evidence, rather than large-scale programme management or lengthy transformation activity.

The goal is to prove whether an idea works before handing successful concepts into Product and Engineering teams for formal productionisation.

Key Responsibilities

• Work directly with business stakeholders to identify high-value AI and automation opportunities
• Translate business pain points into practical technology solutions
• Rapidly assess whether the right answer is:
  • Generative AI
  • Agentic AI
  • Machine learning
  • Workflow automation
  • APIs
  • Existing enterprise tooling
  • Or a simpler non-AI solution
• Help define and build rapid proofs of concept and proofs of value
• Work closely with the AI Innovation Specialist to turn ideas into working prototypes
• Use modern AI-assisted development approaches to accelerate delivery
• Test prototypes quickly with real users and incorporate feedback
• Define success criteria and measure whether pilots are delivering value
• Recommend when an idea should progress, change direction or stop
• Explore new AI tools, platforms and technologies and assess where they could add value
• Hand successful pilots into Product and Engineering teams for formal delivery

What We're Looking For

The ideal candidate will come from a strong technology consulting background and still be close to hands-on delivery.

We are particularly interested in candidates from recognised consulting environments such as:

• Deloitte
• McKinsey
• Bain
• Oliver Wyman
• Accenture
• Capgemini
• IBM Consulting
• Similar Tier 1 / Tier 2 technology or strategy consulting firms

This person does not need extensive ExCo or board-level leadership experience.

The preference is for someone who is still close to the technology, current tools and modern delivery methods, rather than someone whose recent career has focused primarily on programme leadership, transformation governance or large-scale management.

Essential Experience

• Experience in technology, digital or AI consulting
• Strong understanding of how AI can be applied to business problems
• Hands-on experience with modern AI tools, prototypes or AI-enabled workflows
• Ability to move quickly from idea to proof of concept
• Strong problem-solving and structured consulting skills
• Comfortable working in ambiguous environments
• Able to engage confidently with business stakeholders without being overly senior or removed from delivery
• Good understanding of modern software / product delivery approaches
• Strong commercial awareness and ability to identify where technology can create measurable value
• Ability to assess different technical approaches rather than defaulting to LLMs for every use case

Technology Environment

Direct experience with every tool is not required, but exposure to similar technologies is highly relevant.

The current environment includes:

• Salesforce Agentforce
• AWS Bedrock
• Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Suite
• Databricks
• Snowflake
• Cursor
• Modern LLM-based tooling and AI-assisted development environments

Experience with comparable platforms and the ability to quickly learn new tools will be valued.

Ideal Candidate Profile

A strong candidate is likely to be someone who has:

• 5-10+ years in technology, product, data or AI consulting
• Worked directly with clients or business teams to solve ambiguous problems
• Built or helped build AI-enabled products, workflows or prototypes
• Current knowledge of LLMs, agentic AI and AI-assisted development
• Experience working in short delivery cycles
• Strong technical fluency without necessarily being a career software engineer
• Enough technical depth to work closely with engineers and specialists
• A pragmatic mindset around build vs buy vs automate vs simplify

What This Role Is Not

This is not primarily a:

• Programme Manager role
• Transformation Director role
• PMO role
• Enterprise architecture role
• Traditional engineering manager role
• Strategy-only AI role

What Success Looks Like

Over six months, success will be measured through:

• A strong pipeline of viable AI and automation opportunities
• Multiple prototypes and proofs of value delivered quickly
• Successful pilots progressing into formal production delivery
• Weak ideas being stopped early based on evidence
• Practical recommendations on new AI tools and technologies
• Faster movement from business problem to testable solution