James Russell and Harriet Brown, formerly of Google Flights, now head the AI platform’s product strategy and delivery team

Mobi Systems, a collaborative AI company that solves some of the world’s most challenging problems, today announced the addition of travel industry experts James “Jim” Russell as chief product and engineering officer and Harriet Brown as vice president of product. Russell and Brown bring decades of experience in travel technology to Mobi, both serving as integral members of the team who built and scaled ITA Software and the product behind Google Flights, now the premiere global flight search engine.

Founded in the research labs at MIT in 2012, Mobi’s Collaborative AI platform enhances the human ability to make decisions by scanning and assessing thousands of places, data points, and scenarios in order to provide compelling, suitable options that meet business constraints. These can range from helping travel agents build a highly personalized itinerary, to energy companies optimizing their truck rolls, to financial services companies automating their paper-heavy processes. With the addition of Russell and Brown, Mobi will be able to streamline travel planning with destination discovery, personalized recommendations and more.

“With over 15 years in travel tech, I understand the complexities of travel planning. At Mobi, I'm excited to leverage the latest AI innovations to help people discover and plan exciting and delightful travel experiences,” said Russell. “Anna and the Mobi founders have assembled an incredible team with deep technical expertise and experience. The platform focuses on keeping humans in the loop, rather than replacing them, which drew me to this team.”

Russell and Brown started working together at ITA Software in the late 2000s, working on product engineering and scaling the airline software that laid the foundation for Google Flights. Both Russell and Brown continued their work for Google once it acquired ITA, building and scaling Google Flights into the leading flight search engine in the world. Their experiences in smart travel planning, automation and destination discovery will empower Mobi to revolutionize the travel industry.

“I love a project that requires intense problem-solving, where the answer is unclear, and Mobi is founded on solving the hardest problems,” said Brown. “There is so much opportunity to use collaborative AI to build solutions for travel industry problems that are long overdue for improvement. The caliber of Mobi’s team and hunger to problem-solve with open minds, rather than a predefined destination, makes me excited every day to work on this team.”

“Adding Jim and Harriet to Mobi has fundamentally changed how we operate, in all the best ways,” said Mobi CEO Anna Jaffe. “I spent seven years convincing Jim to join us and scale the platform like I knew he could, and Harriet has improved every facet of the platform she’s worked on. It can be hard as a founder to have others handle your product and vision, but Jim and Harriet make it easy.”

Mobi Systems is continuing to expand its workforce and its platform, building a team of experienced partners, industry leaders and the next generation of AI experts. To learn more about Mobi’s upcoming projects and career opportunities, please visit mobi.ai.

About Mobi Mobi’s Collaborative AI platform transforms how companies do business by enhancing their employee’s capabilities and enriching their customer’s experiences. Mobi’s technology builds on seven decades of research and advances in computing power to improve productivity, efficiency, and decision-making at scale. Companies work with us to use their data intelligently and AI thoughtfully, to make their digital offerings more human, and wring every ounce of value out of the assets they own.

Media Haley Sinacole mobi@matternow.com