The New York Jets Will Now Try Being “AI-First”

The New York Jets have been pretty uniformly terrible on the field under the ownership of Woody Johnson, but the organization has lately been recognized as an innovative and industry-leading presence in integrating video game rankings and loutish patrician antics into its front-office processes. That hybrid approach has admittedly not yet borne fruit in terms of top-line indicators like wins, or recording even one interception over a 17-game season, but this sort of work takes time and evolves alongside the technology available. A team must accumulate some more abstract wins off the field before those successes show up in the standings. This work is not glamorous or public, but as New York Jets Chief Analytics and Data Officer Iwao Fusillo told Sports Business Journal, he's already seeing results despite just joining the organization in January after a long career in corporate America. The Jets organization, he said, has already made strides, because 91 percent of the Jets’ front office now uses Microsoft Copilot on a day-to-day basis—up from 'a handful' about a hundred days ago—with users averaging two-to-three prompts per day. How should Jets fans feel about the fact that a large and suspiciously precise percentage of the front office is now firing questions into the widely loathed and overwhelmingly unreliable AI modality in Microsoft's office technology? My friend, I am not in the business of telling Jets fans how to feel about things, and as a rule seek to limit engagement in that area to the extent possible. But it seems clear that Fusillo is pleased with the adoption of this bummy technology so far. I call that level one, or horizon one, Fusillo told SBJ, which is adoption. (The additional two levels, or horizons, have to do with deeper levels of workflow automation, SBJ's Rob Schaefer explained.)