Assoc. Director, AI Transformation

Customer Service Centers (CSC) are advancing premier digital, data, and analytics capabilities to improve performance assessment and accelerate decision-making across our remote two-way customer service engagements. The CSC team manages customer, consumer and employee service interactions in our Company’s National Service Center, Field Service Center, and Promotional Contact Center. These interactions occur across several communication channels for all our Company’s products/vaccines and company information requests. The CSC team also serves as the designated point of contact for the intake of adverse events, and product quality complaints for the U.S. market., The Associate Director, AI Transformation is responsible for leading the strategy, implementation, and continuous improvement of AI-enabled capabilities. This role partners cross-functionally to enhance customer experience, improve operational efficiency, strengthen quality and compliance, and enable scalable service delivery through the thoughtful application of AI, automation, and advanced analytics. This role will serve as a strategic business partner and subject matter leader, identifying opportunities to leverage emerging technologies across contact center operations, knowledge management, reporting, and workflow optimization. This role requires strong leadership, change management, and stakeholder engagement skills, as well as the ability to operate effectively in a regulated healthcare environment., * Partner with delivery and operations support teams in mapping functional requirements to Salesforce and NiCE features and functionality.

• Define and execute a strategic roadmap for the customer service platforms.
• Bridge the gap between traditional support operations and modern AI capabilities.
• Identify inefficiencies and deploy AI-driven solutions that reduce friction for both customers and agents.
• Identify high-value use cases for AI, including agent assist, knowledge retrieval, call summarization, intent classification, quality monitoring, and trend analytics.
• Lead cross-functional governance for AI use, including risk assessment, validation, change management, and ongoing performance monitoring.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies and vendor solutions to determine fit for purpose, scalability, and regulatory readiness.
• Champion adoption of AI-enabled tools by CSC team.
• Define KPIs for AI tool adoption, deflection rates, CSAT impact, and operational cost savings.
• Ensure AI solutions operate within medical, legal, regulatory, privacy, and pharmacovigilance requirements.
• Collaborate with QA and compliance teams to establish validation, auditability, content controls, and human oversight processes.
• Help maintain alignment with standard operating procedures, data privacy standards, and documentation requirements.

• Bachelor’s degree in life sciences, business, health sciences, computer science, or related field.
• 5+ years of Salesforce and/or NiCE platform experience or similar CCaaS/CRM experience
• Demonstrated experience applying AI, automation, or analytics in a regulated environment.
• Strong understanding of compliance, privacy, quality, and documentation standards in healthcare or life sciences.
• Effective communication skills for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Excellent strategic thinking, project leadership, and change management skills.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret operational and performance data.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and drive cross-functional consensus.

Preferred Experience and Skills:

• Experience implementing AI or automation solutions in healthcare, pharma, or customer service environments.
• Experience with change management frameworks and adoption planning., Ability to Coordinate, Business Informatics, Business Support, Change Management, Coaching Employees, Competency Management, Contact Center Management, Customer Care, Customer Centric Focus, Data Privacy, Direct Marketing

We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing together, talented, and committed people with diverse experiences, perspectives, skills and backgrounds. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when people with diverse ideas, broad experiences, backgrounds, and skills come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively.

Learn more about your rights, including under California, Colorado and other US State Acts (https://www.msdprivacy.com/us/en/CCPA-notice/)

The salary range for this role is

$129,000.00 - $203,100.00

Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.