Hard Rock Digital: “There’s a lot that AI can do to improve the player experience and we’re just scratching the surface”

Sportsbooks have long relied on odds and basic statistics, offering little context to help users make sense of what they are betting on. That is beginning to change as operators look for ways to present information in a more useful and timely manner, without overcomplicating the experience.

Hard Rock Digital is one of the latest to test that change with its AI Insights feature. In an exclusive conversation with Yogonet, Mitch Mitchell, Senior Vice President of Data, AI, and Predictive Analytics, discusses how the feature was built, how it works in practice, and what it signals for the future of sportsbook products.

Hard Rock Bet has introduced AI Insights as a new layer within the sportsbook experience. What gap were you aiming to fill for players with this feature?

Historically, sportsbooks have had a pretty thin layer of context, mostly surface-level stats that fans already know or aren’t actually interested in. With Insights, we wanted to unlock the narrative context that makes sports so entertaining: to identify the stories that matter for the teams and events players care about.

We’re using the flexibility of AI and the power of grounding to bridge the gap between raw market data and engaging narratives, delivered in a way that’s frictionless for the player.

As you highlight, AI Insights goes beyond raw data to provide contextual narratives around games. How do you ensure that these insights remain both accurate and genuinely useful for users making decisions?

Every insight is tied back to reliable source data, which significantly reduces the risk of inaccuracies. But that’s only part of it. We also have experts actively reviewing what’s surfaced, whether that’s injury updates, lineup impact, or team momentum, to make sure it’s both accurate and relevant.

Personalization is central to the feature, with insights tailored to users’ favorite teams and leagues. How is player data being leveraged to enhance this experience without overwhelming the user?

Players open the app to do something specific, not to scroll through a feed of content or chat with a bot. Personalization is about surfacing the right insight, for the right event, at the right moment, without the player having to waste time searching for the content they want.

We use what we know about player preferences and behavior to keep insights relevant and allow users to specify which content matters most to them. You see it come through in places like the For You page and Favorites tab, where insights are tailored to the teams, leagues, and players a user actually follows. Everything is in service to the customer experience.

The feature is currently available for NBA, NHL, and soccer. What factors determine which sports or leagues are prioritized as you expand AI Insights further?

It all comes down to insight quality and player demand. The models are only as good as the information behind them. Sports with rich data ecosystems were a natural first step. NBA, NHL, and soccer were great starting points, providing high-quality insights to a large segment of our customers.

But there’s also significant value in providing insights on the long tail of sports; places where the underlying narrative is harder to find, but equally compelling. We’ve even been testing insights in table tennis; there are some truly amazing storylines I never would have discovered if it weren’t for the AI insights feature.

AI is becoming a major focus across the industry. How does AI Insights fit into Hard Rock Digital’s broader long-term strategy around data, predictive analytics, and user engagement?

AI Insights reflects a broader philosophy we have towards AI: AI should serve the customer, not the other way around. There’s a temptation to treat AI as a standalone capability, to bolt on a chatbot and call it innovation. When someone opens a sportsbook, they’re there to bet, not to type prompts.

“How can we use AI?” is the wrong question. The right question is always “how can we improve the player experience?” There’s a lot that AI can do, and we’re just scratching the surface. Product teams need to think differently and innovate to unlock the value of AI for their customers. Insights is a nice example; it adds meaningful context and analysis without adding friction.

Looking ahead, how do you see AI reshaping the sportsbook experience over the next few years, and what role do you envision Hard Rock Bet playing in that evolution?

Anyone who claims they know exactly what this looks like over the next few years is guessing. The pace of progress is exponential; it’s disruptive and impossible to predict beyond a 6-month time horizon. The bottleneck is shifting from speed of development to the quality of ideas.

Everything will improve, from the degree of personalization to the speed at which we release new features. Players will expect more meaningful improvements on a much shorter cycle. At Hard Rock Bet, we want to be the operator that earns that expectation, not by chasing AI for its own sake, but by identifying applications of AI that actually improve the player experience.