Inside the NFL’s New AI-Driven Playbook

The Atlanta Falcons’ Karl Pierburg reveals how AI, analytics, and real-time decisioning are reshaping football strategy, stadium operations, and the fan experience.

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Football has always been shaped by instinct, pattern recognition, and preparation. But for Karl Pierburg, SVP, CTO at the Atlanta Falcons, the big shift today is happening in the velocity and quality of insight. In this conversation, he traces how the Falcons moved from early analytics experiments to a real-time, AI-enabled operation across the team, the stadium, and the broader business.

Key takeaways:

Performance in Real Time: Coaches now expect data-backed insights before sunrise on Monday. Analytics has become a core driver of preparation, strategy, and in-game adjustments.
Stadiums as AI Ecosystems: Mercedes-Benz Stadium operates biometric entry, frictionless concessions, and personalized fan support as a unified, low-latency data environment.
Governance Before Scale: Upskilling the analytics team and creating secure, sovereign sandboxes prevented data leakage and enabled responsible, bottom-up adoption of generative AI.
Agentic Journeys Ahead: From ticket purchase to parking to concessions, the next frontier is a seamless, agent-to-agent fan experience powered by real-time behavioral insight.

About the guest

Karl Pierburg, Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, Football Strategy & Innovation Officer, Atlanta Falcons

Karl Pierburg oversees technology, analytics, and football strategy, guiding AI and data initiatives across the Atlanta Falcons and Mercedes-Benz Stadium. His work spans real-time football operations, edge-based analytics, and large-scale fan experience innovation. Under his leadership, the Falcons and Mercedes-Benz Stadium have become industry benchmarks for biometric entry, autonomous concessions, frictionless operations, and AI-driven decision support.