Ferrari is using IBM’s AI to create F1 superfans

Two years ago, IBM realized there was one glaring omission from its list of sports partnerships: Formula 1.

Formula 1 has become one of the most popular sports in the world, especially in the US, where Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’ documented the working lives of F1 drivers and turned them into mainstream celebrities. The tech-focused sport has also become a hot ticket for tech companies like AWS, Oracle and Anthropic, which are partnering with teams for sponsorship visibility and to provide data analytics and AI tools that can deliver a competitive advantage.

So when IBM looked for its next big sports partnership, it’s no wonder the company chose F1 and one of its most iconic teams: Scuderia Ferrari HP.

“They are the winningest team in history,” Kameryn Stanhouse, IBM’s Vice President of Sports and Entertainment Partnerships, told TechCrunch.

At the heart of this partnership, however, is what has driven other teams to work with tech giants: access to more advanced tech solutions that can help them get the most out of artificial intelligence in particular. One of the best parts of sports, Stanhouse says, is how much data is available and can be used to help people get comfortable with AI.

“They really see how it serves them,” she said of how AI is used in sports storytelling.

The collaboration between IBM and Ferrari revolves around that idea of ​​storytelling, increasing fan engagement by rethinking the technology that powers the Ferrari fan app. To help with this, Ferrari has hired Stefano Pallard in the newly appointed role of ‘head of fan development’, who said the challenge the team wanted to take on was not just about reaching fans, but ‘making each one of them feel like we know them’.

“That starts with taking the data we extract from the track and turning it into content that is easy to follow and engaging,” he told TechCrunch.

Teams process millions of data points per second during every race, recording every movement of the driver and car. Turning this into content that fans can engage with is just one way advanced business AI can help companies better engage with their consumers.

Of the eleven teams, Ferrari is one of the few (alongside McLaren and Williams) to have a standalone fan app strategy rather than leaning on social media or the official F1 platforms, showing how the sport is slowly starting to capitalize on its growing global fandom.

Some changes to the Ferrari app were simple, such as offering it in Italian. Even though Ferrari is an Italian company and many of its fans are Italian, their fan app was only available in Italian after the partnership with IBM.

Stanhouse said the old Ferrari fan app was a place where people went to find race data and then leave. This new app has games where fans can play with others in the app, new AI-written race summaries, more behind-the-scenes stories about the team and drivers, a place to make predictions, and an AI companion where fans can ask questions.

“There are two drivers, but did you know that in two seconds there are 24 people working at the same time to change a tire?” Stanhouse said, adding that storytelling makes fans feel closer to the team.

Unlike other sports apps IBM has built, Stanhouse says the Ferrari app is primarily focused on storytelling because it wants fans to stay engaged with it all year long, rather than just a few weeks a year as with tournaments like the Masters. Engagement data for the app has been on an upward trend since IBM entered the market, Stanhouse says, citing as an example a 62% increase in engagement during race weekends.

Pallard said the team then uses AI to analyze engagement signals in the app, such as what content people like to read and the sentiment of the messages fans send.

“That helps us understand what resonates most with the Tifosi [the fan nickname for Ferrari] and it directly informs how we shape our stories and how we deliver content,” he said.

The team hopes to dive deeper into personalization and create more immersive fan experiences.

The app developers also took into account Ferrari’s fan base, which is much more diverse than even five years ago. F1 released show statistics from last year that 75% of new fans were women, many of whom were Gen Z. A particular draw for women is the F1 Academy, an all-female racing series that aims to develop the next generation of female drivers. But these new fans, just like the old ones, want one thing: more.

“They’re asking for more data, more insight, more features, and we have to be able to deliver that,” Pallard said. “At IBM, the vision for the next five years is to make every fan feel like the experience is built for them, whether they’ve been with us for 30 years or 30 days. That’s how you build long-term loyalty.”