Gap Inc. Principal, Enterprise AI Strategy

Gap Inc; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 204,000 - 265,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Merchandise discount

Generous PTO

Volunteer hours

401(k) with match

Employee stock purchase plan

Health insurance

Job summary

Gap Inc. is seeking a Principal to own Enterprise Strategy within the Office of AI, shaping how AI is deployed across the business. You will articulate a clear thesis on AI direction, draft actionable roadmaps, and partner with Finance, HR, Legal and GTS to ensure adoption.

You will influence policy, standardize tooling costs, and build prototypes to prove concepts, aligning with executives and domain leaders in a fast-moving environment in San Francisco.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in technology strategy, research, investing, consulting, platform ownership or equivalent, with at least 3 years tracking AI.
• Ability to defend a genuine thesis on where technology is going and adapt when evidence moves.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication for memos and executive presentations.

Responsibilities

• Own Enterprise Strategy within Gap Inc.'s Office of AI to define and operationalize AI capabilities.
• Influence policy, standards, and governance; translate frontier developments into executive decisions.
• Collaborate with Finance, HR, Legal and GTS to ensure AI initiatives are integrated and actionable.

Skills

AI strategy

Executive communication

Strategic thinking

Hands-on prototyping

Cross-functional collaboration

Cost modeling

Thought leadership

Stakeholder management

Tools

Large language model tooling

Job description

About Gap Inc.

At Gap Inc., we create culture as much as we create clothes. Our ambition is to become a high‑performing house of iconic American brands that shape culture.

Our portfolio-Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta-each brings a distinct point of view to how we show up in the world and serve our customers.

Old Navy democratizes style with quality and value for all. Gap champions originality through essential pieces that celebrate individuality. Banana Republic is rooted in a spirit of discovery, creating modern pieces inspired by craftsmanship and travel. Athleta champions the Power of She through confidence, strength, and movement.

We're driven by a shared purpose: to bridge gaps-between people, perspectives, and possibilities-to create a better world.

We're building a team that performs at a high level-people who think boldly, take ownership, and turn ideas into impact. If you're ready to learn fast and help shape what's next, you'll fit right in.

About the role

We are seeking a Principal to own Enterprise Strategy within the Office of AI. This is a strategy role in the truest sense: our view of where AI is going, and what Gap Inc. should do about it, will only be as good as the person forming it. The frontier moves every few weeks, most of what is published is noise, and the difference between a genuine capability shift and a release note is a judgment call few people make well. You will make that call, write down the reasoning, and take it to the executives who act on it. You'll then own the decisions that follow. What we standardize on and what we retire, where our partners are heading and what we should be asking them for, what our tooling costs as consumption scales, and whether we are buying capability or licenses nobody uses. You'll influence the policy, standards and governed context the organization needs before the demand arrives rather than after it, so that teams have an answer instead of a queue. You'll also serve as the AI partner to our enterprise functions, including Finance, HR, Legal and GTS, because a strategy nobody can operationalize is not a strategy. That means understanding how those teams actually work, identifying where AI changes it, connecting the tooling to the systems they already run on, and proving the capability rather than describing it. This role suits someone rigorous, who can make an argument land in writing and in the room, who is technical enough to build the thing that settles it, and who is comfortable being the person whose analysis the company bets on.

Who you are

• A strategist with 8+ years in technology strategy, research, investing, consulting, platform ownership or an equivalent discipline, with at least 3 years spent closely tracking AI


• Someone who holds a genuine thesis on where the technology is going, can defend it under pressure, and will change it when the evidence moves


• An exceptional communicator in both writing and presentation. Much of your influence will come through memos and through the decks you put in front of executives, and how well you make the case will decide whether anything happens


• A rigorous thinker who reasons under uncertainty, states assumptions plainly, and is honest about what is still unknown


• A hands‑on builder who has personally created working agents, skills and shared context, and who will build a prototype to settle a question rather than keep debating it


• A credible partner to frontier labs and platform vendors, able to hold a substantive conversation about roadmap and influence what we are offered


• Commercially sharp, able to model what tooling costs at scale across seats, consumption and token spend, and to manage that cost deliberately rather than discover it


• A trusted advisor to senior executives, able to translate a frontier development into the decision it implies for them this quarter


• A collaborative partner to enterprise functions such as Finance, HR, Legal and GTS, able to understand how their work runs and where the opportunity actually sits


• A thought leader who teaches. You explain what new capability actually means, show people how to think about where it applies to their work, and make the organization smarter about AI rather than more reliant on you


• A natural collaborator who works shoulder to shoulder with our domain leads, our platform and process teams, and our partners in Security, Legal and Sourcing


• Someone who thrives in ambiguity and is comfortable making a call before the picture is complete

Competencies

• Forming, defending and revising a point of view on AI capability, adoption and market direction


• Exceptional written and visual communication, including persuasive long‑form memos and executive‑ready presentations


• Evaluation of models, platforms and emerging capability, and translation into enterprise consequence


• Enterprise tooling strategy, covering standardization, licensing, entitlement and migration


• Cost and consumption modelling, including token economics and platform trade‑offs


• Partnership and commercial engagement with frontier labs and major platform vendors


• Hands‑on fluency with large language model tooling, including projects, skills, connectors, MCP and agent patterns


• Thought leadership and collaboration across the organization, teaching what the technology can do and how to think about applying it

Location Area

2F (San Francisco)

This position offers the opportunity to form a company's view of a technology that is still being invented, and then to act on it. You will decide what Gap Inc. believes about AI, what we bet on, what we buy, and what our enterprise teams are able to do with it before our competitors get there.

Salary Range: $203,800.00 - $265,000.00

Benefits at Gap Inc.

• Merchandise discount for our brands: 50% off regular‑priced merchandise at Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta, and 30% off at Outlet for all employees.


• One of the most competitive Paid Time Off plans in the industry.*


• Employees can take up to five "on the clock" hours each month to volunteer at a charity of their choice.*


• Extensive 401(k) plan with company matching for contributions up to four percent of an employee's base pay.*


• Employee stock purchase plan.*


• Medical, dental, vision and life insurance.*


• See more of the benefits we offer.

*For eligible employees

Gap Inc. is an equal‑opportunity employer and is committed to providing a workplace free from harassment and discrimination. We are committed to recruiting, hiring, training and promoting qualified people of all backgrounds, and make all employment decisions without regard to any protected status. We have received numerous awards for our long‑held commitment to equality and will continue to foster a diverse and inclusive environment of belonging. In 2022, we were recognized by Forbes as one of the World's Best Employers and one of the Best Employers for Diversity.