Creative Director, MAI Creative Studio Lead

About MAI

Microsoft AI (MAI) is on a mission to create AI that empowers people, organizations, and society. We build the models, systems, and experiences that power some of Microsoft's most ambitious AI innovations, leveraging cutting-edge research, world-class engineering, and large-scale infrastructure to advance the state of the art. Our teams work across foundation models, reasoning systems, agents, AI infrastructure, and product experiences, bringing breakthrough AI capabilities to millions of users around the world.

MAI is a startup-like team inside Microsoft, created to push the boundaries of AI toward Humanist Superintelligence — ultra-capable systems that remain controllable, safety-aligned, and anchored to human values. Our mission is to create AI that amplifies human potential while ensuring humanity remains firmly in control. We aim to deliver breakthroughs that benefit society — advancing science, education, and global well-being.

Our team is led by Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI. We bring together leading researchers, engineers, and product builders who have contributed to many of the most significant advances in modern AI.

About the Role

We're looking for a Creative Director to lead creative for Microsoft AI: someone who can set a visual and narrative point of view for how people experience AI, and drive a team capable of bringing that vision to life across every surface: models, product, marketing, campaigns, and physical/live moments.


This is a rare hybrid role. You'll need the taste and craft of a world-class art director, the instincts of a producer, the mind of storyteller, and the leadership of someone who's run creative teams and production before. This person should have an authentic connection to contemporary culture ensuring the work remains relevant, timely, and culturally resonant. You should be equally comfortable critiquing a typeface choice, sharpening a product screen, and briefing a launch campaign that spans a keynote stage, a product surface, and a social feed.

This role also partners closely with Operations to structure the team’s work, setting its mission, defining goals, and establishing clear processes that enable strong, focused execution.

We're specifically looking for someone who is still a maker, not just a manager. The best creative directors we've worked with never stopped making things themselves. They can jump into the work, build a schedule for the team, sketch a direction, or push pixels when it matters, and then step back into setting vision, building teams, and partnering with executives. That range is a defining trait we're hiring for, not a nice-to-have.


Responsibilities

• Set the creative vision for Microsoft AI — the visual language, tone, and narrative point of view that shows up consistently across product, brand, and marketing
• Art direct at the highest level — reviewing, shaping, and elevating design work across visual identity, motion, typography, and UI, with an eye that can tell the difference between "good" and genuinely distinctive
• Stay hands-on — building work back schedules, sketch a direction, design a key visual, or push a concept forward when the moment calls for it, rather than directing from a distance
• Lead and grow a visually-focused creative team — hiring, mentoring, and directing creative designers and art directors, and fostering an environment where world-class visual work thrives
• Shape story and language alongside the visuals — partnering closely with the Creative Strategy and Brand Writing leads so that strategy, words, and images are developed together as equal parts of one idea
• Build and leverage relationships with top-tier creative agencies, production partners, and creative talent
• Bridge product and marketing — ensuring the creative thread is unbroken from the first-run product experience to the campaign that introduces it to the world
• Design across digital and physical — from in-product moments and digital campaigns to launch events, physical installations, and experiential brand moments
• Partner cross-functionally with product, engineering, research, and marketing leadership to make sure creative ambition and product reality stay in sync
• Represent the creative studio internally and externally — presenting work, building conviction, and advocating for craft at every level of the organization

Qualifications
Required/Minimum Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 6+ years experience working in product or service design OR Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 8+ years experience working in product or service design OR equivalent experience (e.g., demonstrated experience working in product or service design or using design thinking to solve problems).
• 3+ years people management experience and/or agency experience.

Additional/Preferred Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 8+ years experience working in product or service design OR Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 12+ years experience working in product or service design OR equivalent experience (e.g., demonstrated experience working in product or service design or using design thinking to solve problems).
• 5+ years people management experience.
• 6+ years experience shipping products and/or delivering to customers as a result of an end-to-end design process
• Experience directing creative for AI or emerging-technology products
• Have exceptional presentation skills and the gravitas to champion bold creative ideas with senior leadership
• Experience leading and growing and managing creative teams, including hiring, mentoring, and managing multidisciplinary talent (designers, writers, art directors, producers)
• Comfort spanning product and marketing — you don't see "brand" and "product design" as separate disciplines, and you have experience (or a strong point of view) on both
• Real cultural fluency — active engagement with music, entertainment, fashion, or adjacent creative communities, ideally evidenced by projects, collaborations, or ventures outside of a traditional day job
• A track record of shipping ambitious creative work at scale, ideally including work that's been publicly recognized (awards, press, cultural impact)
• Experience directing physical/experiential work, installations, events, retail, or spatial design