In a world where headlines often portray Artificial Intelligence as a replacement for human roles, my journey leading the National Football League’s Digital Athlete Initiative reveals a different narrative. Transitioning from an injured athlete to a leader in player safety has taught me that successful AI implementation is rooted in empowerment, not replacement.
At the heart of our work is a system designed to deliver actionable insights to athlete management teams, showcasing how AI can significantly enhance efficiency and effectiveness in managing athletes’ health and performance. This experience offers key insights into how organizations can successfully create AI while keeping humans at the center.
Key Insights for AI Adoption
- Start with People
From the outset of the Digital Athlete project, collaboration with training specialists was essential. Their insights shaped every aspect of our development, ensuring our AI solutions met their real-world needs. Success in AI adoption begins with understanding frontline workers’ daily challenges—specifically, what consumes their time and what decisions they need better data for—whether in healthcare, manufacturing, or retail. From there, AI can be leveraged to enhance their expertise, not replace it. - Build the Right Foundation
Transformative AI relies on three crucial elements often overlooked by organizations:
- Invest in Data Capture and Standardization: AI is only as strong as the data it learns from. For the Digital Athlete platform, this involved integrating data from all 32 clubs, encompassing game day, practice, protective equipment, and video analysis. By standardizing this vast data and synchronizing it to fractions of a second in video—capturing injuries in milliseconds—we unlocked advanced modeling and simulation capabilities. This complexity emphasizes the importance of investing in the proper foundation with the right experts. Similarly, in any industry, whether in healthcare or manufacturing, capturing and standardizing data from various sources enables organizations to gain deeper insights and improve operational outcomes.
- Foster a Diverse Expert Ecosystem: Just as we brought together biomechanical engineers who understood both football and biomechanics, AI-driven decisions require input from multiple disciplines. By assembling a team of engineers, data scientists, and performance specialists, we translated AI insights into real-world actions that enhanced athlete safety and performance. In any industry, fostering collaboration among experts, such as data analysts and industry specialists, is crucial for informed decisions and improved outcomes.
- Create Clear Feedback Loops: The best AI systems evolve through continual input. Enabling end users to shape how information is presented fosters effective utilization of AI insights, making the technology more relevant and impactful.
The true power of AI lies in amplifying, not replacing, human expertise. By prioritizing people, establishing robust data foundations, and cultivating diverse teams, organizations can develop AI systems that genuinely benefit users. Continuous feedback loops are essential for keeping humans at the center, transforming AI from a perceived threat into a valuable empowerment tool. This strategy lays the groundwork for translating AI insights into actionable steps, delivering real-world impact across various industries.
Real-World Impact: Data to Action
Real-world results transform AI from a promising technology into a trusted tool. When organizations can point to concrete improvements in safety, efficiency, or performance, it validates the human-centered approach and accelerates adoption. Our NFL experience demonstrates this perfectly.
Our athlete management teams experienced significant enhancements through AI integration. Two standout examples include:
- Real-Time Interventions: During the playoffs, our system flagged a key running back showing early signs of strain, allowing the training staff to adjust his practice routine and keep him healthy for a pivotal postseason role.
- Head Impact Detection System: We developed a groundbreaking system utilizing computer vision to identify head impacts in real-time, resulting in modified tackling techniques that reduced players’ exposure to head injuries.
These initiatives have set a new standard for injury prevention and human performance in football. The NFL’s commitment to transparency and player safety resulted in extraordinary achievements, including the lowest number of concussions on record this past year—a 17% decrease from the previous year—and ongoing declines in lower extremity strains. The Digital Athlete was recognized as the 2025 Best Technology for Human Performance by Sports Business Journal.
The Future: AI as a Partner in Human Potential
Throughout my journey, I identified several key factors for organizations looking to empower their teams with AI:
- Invest in Human-Centered Design: Engage end users from the start to ensure the AI solution addresses real needs.
- Build Comprehensive Data Infrastructure: Without standardized and reliable data, even the most advanced AI systems will fall short.
- Create Clear Feedback Loops: Allowing end users to shape data presentation fosters effective use of AI insights.
- Demonstrate Practical Applications: Translating insights into tangible applications reinforces the technology’s value and secures ongoing support for larger projects. Showcasing successes encourages further investment in innovative solutions.
Conclusion: AI’s True Value Lies in Empowerment, Not Replacement
The future of AI lies not in replacement, but in empowerment. Organizations that embrace AI as a tool to enhance human capability will thrive. By merging human expertise with AI’s analytical capabilities, we can enhance decision-making, increase efficiency, and enable teams to focus on their core strengths.
Ultimately, the true promise of AI is its ability to work alongside us, making our teams stronger and more effective. This vision embodies my connection-oriented leadership principles—prioritizing the human touch alongside technological advancements. As we move forward, let’s commit to harnessing AI to empower our teams, transforming our work processes, and unlocking human potential in ways we have yet to imagine.
