The gambling sector has been abuzz with AI in recent months. The peek behind the door at some operators’ Q1 earnings, including DraftKings and Lottomatica, as well as some press releases outlining partnerships and new products from FanDuel and ComeOn Group, has whetted the appetite.
Here, evoke chief customer and risk officer Harinder Gill explains how the London-listed business is joining its fellow operators in taking on an “AI-first approach”. From streamlining customer feedback processes to establishing a centre of excellence, the operator is putting a lot of weight behind its aims.
The move to embrace AI forms part of the business’ value creation plan, the blueprint from CEO Per Widerström when he joined the business in 2023. With the business now looking to close the gap in the UK, plus a return to growth in 2025, Gill suggests the power of AI could well help drive those ambitions forward
EGR: Harinder, would you describe evoke as an “AI-first” company, in the same way other businesses, both inside and outside of the sector, have done so in recent weeks?
Harinder Gill (HG): When we set out our value creation plan, we identified several strategic initiatives for unlocking long-term growth. One of these is focused on AI and intelligent automation, which we view as foundational capabilities.
To realise this opportunity, we are creating an AI-first mindset from top to bottom. We want our colleagues to see AI as a powerful tool for creating new and exciting content, enabling infinite personalisation and working more efficiently and collaboratively across our global offices.
EGR: Has evoke opted to develop an in-house AI product, or is it a case of cherry picking third-party tech to create a solution?
HG: The pace of innovation with AI products is incredibly fast. While we would love to own our entire tech, the rate of change and resources required to innovate from the ground up can become very capital intensive.
We want to create an AI-first culture by cherry picking the best third-party AI products and overlaying our own personalisation and localisation to make them relevant to our business and players. Alongside this, we will also focus on building AI products related to our existing IP.
We see this combination as highly effective for unlocking our growth and delivering value to our shareholders.
EGR: The full-year 2024 results stated that evoke is now “accelerating investments” in AI for all group functions. What are the core divisions you think would benefit most from AI investments?
HG: Over the last year, we have a built an intelligent automation and AI centre of excellence. The core team has more than 40 colleagues that are specialists in all things AI and automation. Many have joined us from outside of the industry, bringing new skills and fresh perspectives on how we can accelerate innovation.
The team has already identified several opportunities throughout our global operations where AI and automation can have a big impact. This includes customer operations, trading, commercial and marketing.
EGR: Do you have examples within the business where AI deployment has already saved capital expenditure and/or streamlined processes?
HG: A great example will be how we use it for customer research. Currently, feedback from customers is collected mostly from our UK users, but it can be difficult to get any discernible or actionable insights.
To address this problem, we listened to the voice of our customer, combined with machine learning, generative AI and automation, to redevelop the entire end-to-end process. This starts with data ingestion, which is then formulated into meaningful insights and dashboards that teams can use within their roles.
Based on the success of this initiative, we plan to roll it out across all markets and languages to support our customer-facing teams.
EGR: Also, looking at your position within the C-suite, are there ways you are using AI to support your workload personally?
HG: Absolutely. As an example, I am currently using our generative AI studio while it is at pilot stage. This brings the power of ChatGPT, and other similar platforms, into the company in a way that is safe and secure.
We want to democratise access to tools that improve people’s workloads across the business. Part of encouraging this shift will involve creating awareness of AI, upskilling colleagues through prompt engineering and giving them the confidence to use our generative AI studio without risking data leakage.
EGR: Looking at how AI will interact with the customer, some operators have pointed to AI-powered personalisation helping drive up revenues. How is evoke developing its frontend personalisation using AI?
HG: We have created a target business architecture to scale customer-focused personalisation across our products.
We believe this will help us create truly world-class betting and gaming experiences where each player receives products, offers and content, underpinned by AI-powered safer gambling focused on Customer 360 and risk monitoring.
EGR: In terms of sports betting, is there a role for AI within the trading room? And if so, to what extent?
HG: Within our trading room, AI is already being used for trading limit updates. We are focused on leveraging automation across a number of processes like this, as well as creating recommendation engines to provide bespoke recommendations to players based on their unique preferences.
EGR: And within marketing, both from a content creation and CRM lens, where is evoke using AI?
HG: We have a dedicated strategic initiative focusing on customer lifecycle management, within which marketing and content creatives are key areas.
Here, we are focusing on both the automation of marketing processes and using generative AI to create various types of content for our brands.
We have created an in-house, fine-tuned generative AI model that enables us to create digital assets for our brands. While many are still in their early phase of development, we are seeing lots of success, which is giving us confidence to move forward and scale the use of AI across the business.
EGR: In your commentary within the evoke 2024 annual report, you mentioned the company appointed an AI and IA director to oversee the vertical. Can you share who this is and what their day-to-day and long-term vision include?
HG: I am delighted to say that we hired Kanda Kumar as our director of AI and intelligent automation. Kanda brings a wealth of transformational experience. We consciously hired a leader from outside the sector, in this case from Ericsson, due to his successful track record in driving transformation through AI and intelligent automation.
He has made a huge impact so far, and I look forward to working with Kanda to drive forward the next phase of our AI and automation roadmap.
EGR: How big is the AI and intelligent automation team at evoke? And how large do you expect this division to become in the next 24 months?
HG: We have approximately 40 people working in the IA and AI team at evoke.
It is difficult to predict the size of the team in the years ahead. We want to scale while staying agile and efficient, so we won’t hire new colleagues for the sake of it.
We also look at how we can bring on specialist expertise that could add significant value to our AI journey.
EGR: Does the increased uptake in AI usage have a direct correlation to a decrease in headcount?
HG: We see AI as something that can transform individual and team productivity. This will mean people spending less time on administrative and often time-intensive tasks in favour of more impactful, creative tasks that can help our continued evolution.
EGR: Do you harbour any ethical concerns around the rise of AI, from both a personal and professional perspective?
HG: It is critical to consider the risks around AI, including privacy, fairness, accountability and transparency.
Here at evoke we have specifically developed a ‘Responsible AI’ framework to enable us to consider and minimise such risks across all areas of the business.
The post Q&A: Evoke chief customer exec on harnessing generative AI and hiring top talent first appeared on EGR Intel.
Chief customer and risk officer Harinder Gill explains how the London-listed operator is engaging with AI and its plans to build a team with “specialist expertise”
The post Q&A: Evoke chief customer exec on harnessing generative AI and hiring top talent first appeared on EGR Intel.