AI in Sport: The FA's CDO on What's Real and What's Still Hype

AI is the most talked-about topic in sport right now. It's also the most misunderstood. Alexandra Willis, the first-ever Chief Digital Officer at The FA, has worked with IBM, Microsoft, and some of sport's most sophisticated technology teams across Wimbledon, the Premier League, and now the FA. Her perspective on where AI genuinely delivers - and where the hype is running ahead of reality - is one of the most grounded you'll find. The analogy she uses is simple and hard to argue with: if you don't have good ingredients, you'll make a bad pie. AI readiness isn't about the tools. It's about the data. Getting it into the right shape, the right format, the right quantities - that's the work most organisations haven't done yet. Miheer adds a layer that matters for anyone operating at enterprise scale: the real challenge isn't productivity tools. It's siloed data systems - CRM, CDP, ticketing - that don't talk to each other. Until that's solved, AI can only take you so far. Alexandra also raises a question nobody in sport is asking loudly enough: would we be in a better position if ChatGPT had arrived a little later - giving organisations more time to build the foundations before the pressure to deploy arrived? What you'll take away from this clip: Why AI readiness is a data problem before it's a technology problem What Alexandra learned from AI partnerships at Wimbledon and the Premier League - and what transfers to the FA Why siloed data systems are the biggest blocker to AI being genuinely powerful in sport The honest question about whether the pace of AI adoption has left organisations scrambling Watch the full episode to hear how Alexandra is building for AI at the FA - and where she thinks the real opportunities lie.