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’s national team that hasn’t qualified for an international tournament since 2000, Norwegian football is trying to think differently.

“Over 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?”, says creative Jørgen Sibbern. 

With a manager powered by 12 trillion data points and real-time integration, and fed with player stats, HamKam might be the World’s first professional club to give full rein to an AI head coach - even if its stint in charge didn’t last too long.

“It 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’t cut it, especially in such a human-centred role. The human manager should be back in charge now - and rightly so,” says Martin Hoff Pedersen, senior communications advisor at Eidsiva.

“The 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,” explains Jens-Petter Aarhus, creative director at Anorak NoA.

“Football 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,”  says HamKam’s general manager Mehran Amundsen-Ansari. “We were also impressed by how quickly the players bought into the idea - even if things escalated a little during the match…”.

Glenn Kitson, whose roster includes Liverpool FC, Manchester City FC and Nike, got involved early. 

- Who wouldn’t 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’t hear much about. That, and of course, wearing long underpants again.