AI Product Strategist

About the role

Nelnet Business Services (NBS), a division of Nelnet, Inc., provides payment technology and education services to more than 1,200 higher education institutions, nearly 12,000 K-12 schools, and millions of individual students, families, and supporters across the globe. Our culture of service enables us to form long-lasting and trusted partnerships, while our focus on creativity and innovative solutions empowers our customer communities to thrive.

The Lead AI Product Strategist develops and advances product strategies that apply artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, and data capabilities to customer-facing products and internal product-development processes. The role identifies high-value AI opportunities, translates business and customer needs into product direction, and leads cross-functional initiatives from discovery through implementation. This role also improves product operations by developing scalable, transparent, and auditable workflows that convert structured and unstructured data into actionable inputs. This position serves as a subject-matter resource on emerging AI capabilities, responsible AI adoption, security, privacy, and regulatory considerations.

Responsibilities

• Develop AI product strategies and roadmaps that align customer needs, business objectives, technology capabilities, and organizational priorities.
• Identify and evaluate opportunities to integrate artificial intelligence, machine learning, intelligent decisioning, and automation into products and product-development processes.
• Lead cross-functional AI product initiatives from discovery and problem definition through prioritization, implementation, measurement, and continuous improvement.
• Design and optimize multi-stage workflows that transform structured and unstructured information into usable product insights, recommendations, and business decisions.
• Experience with end-to-end process automation, AI assistants, agentic workflows, multi-agent systems, classification models, platform products, APIs, developer tools, payments, financial technology, or other regulated digital ecosystems.
• Experience operating independently in a regulated or risk-sensitive environment and incorporating privacy, security, compliance, and governance considerations into product decisions.
• Partner with product, business, data, risk, compliance, design, and technology stakeholders to assess feasibility, dependencies, customer impact, and implementation risk.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies, industry developments, competitors, and changing customer expectations to inform product positioning and investment decisions.
• Assess security, privacy, regulatory, ethical, authentication, authorization, and fraud-related considerations associated with AI-enabled products.
• Build and maintain reusable knowledge, documentation, decision records, and operating frameworks that support transparency, auditability, and organizational adoption.
• Measure and communicate product outcomes, workflow efficiency, adoption, risk, and strategic value to business leaders and cross-functional stakeholders.

Education

• Required: Bachelor's degree in product management, business, information systems, computer science, data science, engineering, economics, or a related field; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
• Preferred: Graduate degree, advanced coursework, or relevant certification in product management, artificial intelligence, data science, information systems, agile product development, or responsible AI.