Product Manager, AI Interactive Characters

Job Title: Product Manager, AI Interactive Characters Location: Hybrid (London-based, two days in office) Duration: Full-time Salary: £60,000  Start Date: ASAP About XICOIA XICOIA is an AI entertainment studio building and managing AI-native characters as owned IP. Spun out of award-winning production company Particle6, we create characters that live across social platforms, interactive real-time experiences and original narrative production. Our flagship character, Tilly Norwood, became a global story within weeks of launch. Behind her sits a slate of characters in development and a growing pipeline of commercial partnerships. About the Role We are looking for a Product Manager to own the delivery and quality of our interactive character products. Our characters are real-time conversational experiences: a user talks to a character, and the character talks back, in voice, in real time, in a personality that has to hold up. Building these means bringing together conversational AI, voice synthesis, avatar rendering, a live web product, and a lot of creative craft. Your job is to make sure all of that ships, on time, and at a standard we are proud of. This is a delivery and quality role, rather than a strategy role. Creative direction sits with our CEO and creative team; engineering sits with our engineers. You own the space in between: the spec, the schedule, the QA, the vendors, the compliance, and the call on whether something is genuinely ready to go live. What You’ll Be Doing * Product Delivery: Own the end-to-end delivery of interactive character products, from spec through launch. Set milestones, run the sprint rhythm, unblock the team, and keep leadership sighted on real status rather than optimistic status. * Quality \& QA: Define what “ready” means before we build, then hold the line on it. Design and run structured QA across conversation quality, latency, voice, video and UX. Triage and prioritise bugs. * Specification: Turn creative intent into clear, testable requirements that engineers and creative leads can both work from. * Vendor \& Partner Management: Manage our third-party technology partners across conversational AI, voice and avatar infrastructure. Hold them to contracted deliverables, escalate when quality slips, and evaluate alternatives. * Compliance \& Risk: Own the operational requirements of running consumer-facing AI products: GDPR and data retention, moderation and abuse handling, age gating, terms of use, and incident response. * Repeatability: Document and systemise the build so that character two ships faster than character one, and character five ships faster again. What We’re Looking For * Several years of proven experience shipping consumer-facing digital products, apps or games, ideally with at least one launch you owned end to end. You have taken something live and dealt with the consequences. * A genuine, independent quality bar. You form your own view on whether something is good, rather than reporting back what you were told. * Strong QA instincts and the discipline to test systematically rather than by feel. * Comfort working with technical teams: you do not need to write the code, but you need to understand the constraints and ask the right questions. * Experience managing external vendors or technology partners against a contract. * Excellent written communication. Clear specs, clear status, no ambiguity. * Working knowledge of the operational requirements around consumer data and privacy (GDPR, retention, user safety). * Comfort with ambiguity and unfinished process. This is a startup inside a fast-moving category, and much of what you do will not have been done before. * Genuine hands-on experience with AI tooling, not just interest in it. You have built with, tested, or worked daily inside LLM-based products. Nice to Have * Background in games production, digital agency production, or a consumer app startup. * Direct experience with conversational AI, voice synthesis or generative video platforms. * Experience shipping products with a real-time or latency-sensitive component. * Interest in entertainment, comedy or character-led IP. How to Apply Please send your CV alongside any relevant information to hiring@xicoiatalent.com. * Right to Work in the UK – please provide any details where necessary * Salary Expectations – please provide a range or specific figure * Notice Period / Availability * Academic Qualifications – a full breakdown. Please include specific secondary school results (e.g. GCSEs or international equivalents) as well as any degree/higher education details. If any are unavailable, please clearly state this. *N.B. We understand that everyone’s journey is different and that qualifications don’t always tell the whole story. As noted above, gathering this information is a standard part of our recruitment process, but we’re very open to hearing about all experiences and circumstances, so please feel free to share any context you’d like us to consider.* Accessibility Please contact hiring@xicoiatalent.com for any questions or if you require any accessible adjustments to the application process. GDPR Statement By applying you consent to XICOIA retaining your application for 12 months unless you say otherwise. Privacy \& Your Data We take your privacy seriously. Every application is reviewed manually by our hiring team. For full details on how we store your information and your rights under the Data Protection Act, please see our Recruitment Privacy Notice. This role will require you to complete a self-declaration of any unspent criminal convictions prior to or at the commencement of your employment.