This Norwegian Football Team Hires an AI Manager
AI is muscling in on human jobs. In Norway, mid-table football team HamKam 2 has fully embraced the shift. Entrusting the entire responsibility of their squad to an AI football manager equipped with real-time data integration. Renowned UK director, Glenn Kitson (Iconoclast), was there to document the experiment backed by team sponsor Eidsiva, a tech and energy company.
With a men鈥檚 national team that hasn鈥檛 qualified for an international tournament since 2000, Norwegian football is trying to think differently.
鈥淥ver this past year, AI has evolved so much that we can realistically pose the question: can an AI manager run a football team - on its own?鈥, says creative J酶rgen Sibbern.
With a manager powered by 12 trillion data points and real-time integration, and fed with player stats, HamKam might be the World鈥檚 first professional club to give full rein to an AI head coach - even if its stint in charge didn鈥檛 last too long.
鈥淚t was both interesting and reassuring to have our hypothesis confirmed: technology works best when it plays on the same team as people. This project showed that technology on its own doesn鈥檛 cut it, especially in such a human-centred role. The human manager should be back in charge now - and rightly so,鈥 says Martin Hoff Pedersen, senior communications advisor at Eidsiva.
鈥淭he manager is fully operational and available for anyone curious to try. But our conclusion is definitely that humans still have a significant role to play,鈥 explains Jens-Petter Aarhus, creative director at Anorak NoA.
鈥淔ootball and tech are moving fast - and many teams focus on datasets and money ball. We wanted to see what would happen if we went all the way,鈥 says HamKam鈥檚 general manager Mehran Amundsen-Ansari. 鈥淲e were also impressed by how quickly the players bought into the idea - even if things escalated a little during the match鈥︹.
Glenn Kitson, whose roster includes Liverpool FC, Manchester City FC and Nike, got involved early.
- Who wouldn鈥檛 be drawn to the weirdness of some autonomous AI-manager in the Norwegian backwoods? Also, I appreciated getting to experience a football culture we don鈥檛 hear much about. That, and of course, wearing long underpants again.
