The Kraft Group CIO Michael Israel said the “enormous” five-year strategic partnership with NWN is going to leverage the power of AI to make all of The Kraft Group’s businesses, including The New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium, more efficient.
“The economic impact is how do we get smarter and how do we drive efficiencies and the guest experience,” said Israel of the partnership aimed at overhauling the existing Gillette Stadium IT infrastructure for the AI era. “If the guest experience is better, people are going to stay longer and they are going to buy more. The more modern we become, the more we transform, the more efficient we become.”
Israel said he is looking for AI to move beyond older business knowledge systems that put dashboards and reports in front of managers but were never acted upon.
“You did not change behavior as a result of the reports and dashboards,” he said. “But now because AI is becoming so advanced you are able to automate the low-hanging decision processes. It is allowing our people to step up higher in terms of what they are doing.”
Israel, who has brought AI systems to Gillette Stadium to ensure fan safety and also brought AI innovation to The Kraft Group companies, said among the areas where AI can be deployed is taking ticket orders over a phone with the ability to add in extras like a meal package, a fast entry lane or mobile wallet purchases at Gillette Stadium.
The NWN deal includes network upgrades, modernized cloud collaboration solutions and AI-enabled applications to improve the Gillette Stadium experience for fans and players of the New England Patriots and the New England Revolution soccer team.
“The amount of technology spend that’s going to be coming during this period related to transforming our networks is unprecedented,” said Israel. “We have not done something as enormous as this during our history here.”
Over the last six years as CIO, Israel has led a technology renaissance at Gillette Stadium and The Kraft Companies that includes a new IPTV (internet protocol television) network, the deployment of 5G, Wi-Fi 6 with over 1,500 wireless access points, and an AI-based automated raw material detection system for one of the Kraft Group businesses.
Israel said his IT department is unique among the other NFL teams because of the breadth and depth of the businesses it supports for The Kraft Group.
“We self-operate,” said Israel of The Kraft Group’s businesses that his IT department supports. “The Krafts own this operation. We own the stadium. We own our concessions. We run our own security. It is our staff. We don’t outsource any of this. If you go to a SoFi Stadium or Allegiant, the team may or may not even own the stadium. They are a tenant. Here we self-operate. We own it. We run it. So whatever we are doing to enhance that experience, we are in control of that.
“Essentially, we control our own destiny,” he said. “When you go to a SoFi Stadium they have an unbelievable network there, but that network is a utility. You have tenants coming in to use it, whereas here we are driving change that impacts us and our organization as a whole.”