In terms of customer news (not a central focus for this column, unless it’s something like the following), Liverpool FC and SAS are now working together to deliver more personalised, real-time digital fan experiences with AI.
The Reds will now use AI and data analytics from SAS to transform how it engages digitally with its supporters. As part of a multiyear partnership with SAS, LFC is deploying AI-driven marketing technology in SAS Customer Intelligence 360 (the company’s cloud-based marketing platform for personalised, data-driven customer journey orchestration), alongside the data, analytics and modeling of SAS Viya.
Agentic Fan Experiences
This work lays the groundwork for what people are now calling a foundation for the future, with more adaptive, real-time digital fan engagement with AI agents.
LFC will apply SAS AI and analytics and unify data across web, mobile and social platforms, but what could this mean for users?
We can expect personalised merchandising offers to fans based on their interests and digital engagement patterns with the club; optimised user journeys, as AI and analytics reveal “friction points” across web, mobile and social interactions; and fan engagement modelling.
“Our focus is on our supporters – how we engage them digitally, the quality digital experiences we offer and how we continue to grow that audience globally,” said Chris Jennions, VP of marketing at Liverpool FC. “With SAS Customer Intelligence 360, we can deliver AI-powered, real-time, individualised digital fan experiences, serving our supporters better than ever before. Just as importantly, it gives us a clear way to measure success through engagement, conversion and fan sentiment supporting long-term sustainability.”
SAS Customer Intelligence
Moving forward, LFC will use specialised AI agents within SAS Customer Intelligence 360 to orchestrate digital fan engagement across customer journeys, all in real-time. Working alongside marketers, these AI agents help accelerate execution, enhance precision and enable more responsive, real-time interactions at scale.
“As LFC looks ahead, the real opportunity lies in moving from AI‑assisted marketing to AI‑orchestrated digital fan engagement,” said Jonathan Moran, head of martech solutions marketing at SAS. “With the AI agents embedded in SAS Customer Intelligence 360, LFC can begin coordinating intelligent audience creation, designing customer journeys and decisions in real time using AI to surface insights, and recommend next best actions to accelerate execution and conversion, while marketers remain firmly in control of strategy, approvals and guardrails.”
For the next season and beyond, LFC will now look to create and iteratively improve customer audiences based on AI-based adaptive learning; to continuously optimise fan journeys in real‑time based on behaviour, context and engagement signals; and gain operational and performance insights from their customer engagement platform.
Does Liverpool Walk Alone?
As progressive as this work with Liverpool FC no doubt is, SAS is not the only technology company (and Liverpool is not the only team) to roll out enterprise-level IT stack innovations to augment how it works.
Microsoft has a five-year partnership with the Premier League overall, which makes it the league’s official cloud and AI partner. The work sees Microsoft implement Azure OpenAI Service across the league’s mobile app and web platforms. The work features a Microsoft Copilot-powered “companion tool” that allows adoring fans to query many decades of match data and do so in a conversational way.
Bolstering Das Bundesliga
After famously working with the national German soccer (sorry, let’s say football) team over the years (the men’s team lifted the FIFA World Cup in Brazil after defeating Argentina 1–0 in the final in 2014), SAP is now working with the German Bundesliga side VfB Stuttgart, deploying cloud technologies to optimize player performance, enhance in-stadium experiences and streamline matchday operations.
Acronis is working with Manchester City as its official data backup and storage partner. The club and the wider overseeing City Football Group (CFG) have also used Google Cloud to underpin its operational backbone. Using Google’s BigQuery and machine learning models, CFG has unified data across multiple clubs to optimize scouting, player recruitment, and fan engagement.
The organization says that this “data-first” approach allows the group to analyze vast datasets in real-time, ensuring that whether a fan is in Manchester or Melbourne, their digital journey is consistent and highly tailored.
Back across the pond, Major League Soccer has selected StellarAlgo to enhance fan engagement. The company is known for its customer data platform that is specially aligned to sports and entertainment, helping organizations use data to personalize and enhance fan engagement.
Chelsea Blues
Meanwhile, IFS is currently a principal partner of Chelsea FC, having signed a multi-year global agreement in February 2026. This partnership is unique because it combines high-profile branding with deep technical integration.
“We are incredibly proud to partner with IFS and leverage their leading-edge AI software to help propel the club to even greater success,” said Jason Gannon, president of Chelsea FC. “This partnership is a statement of intent to keep leading in this field, harnessing the opportunities advanced technology brings and unlocking the power of AI to improve everything we do on and off the pitch.”
“In sport as in industry, the margins are small, the stakes are high, and the right decision at the right moment is everything,” said Mark Moffat, chief executive officer at IFS. “That’s what IFS Industrial AI delivers for the industries that power the global economy. Chelsea FC holds itself to that same uncompromising standard, and that shared ambition is exactly why we’re proud to be their Principal Partner.”
Football then – like banking, the food & beverage trade, petrochemicals and every other industry vertical you care to name – is now being augmented, enhanced and extended not just by enterprise technology, but the agentic AI services now coming to the fore in platforms everywhere.
What more can we say? Gooooooooaaaaal!
