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Check out our latest Q&A w/ Nick McDonald, Account Director at Fujitsu.
We’ve seen AI become an increasingly popular tool across the world, and igaming has been no exception to that trend. What do you think has been the driving force behind this increased adoption of AI?
I guess the driving force behind the increased adoption of artificial intelligence is, quite simply, everyone is talking about AI. Everyone wants to know how they can best use that technology within their day-to-day operations. In other words, everyone wants to get in on the action. Internally, we at Fujitsu are always analysing new and different ways that we can perhaps integrate AI into our systems and how we can offer that out to the market.
One of the challenges that we see with a lot of customers is that there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between what the Board Level teams want to do with AI technology, and the reality of integrating this technology. In many cases, we’ve seen people want to utilise AI, but they often don’t seem set on exactly how they want to use it. They tend to be manufacturing reasons to use AI.
From Fujitsu’s point of view, we do have a lot of frameworks and platforms that tie into artificial intelligence. With Test Lab, which is our AI test platform, users are able to add their data to the platform and develop their own AI models. Our partners can also use the Test Lab platform to create their own Chat GPT models which they can then add to their own platforms – it will use their own data, rather than relying on pre-built models which may not be as tailored to their needs.
We’ve got the technology stacks. So if people have ideas that they want to run which use AI, rather than investing hundreds of thousands of pounds on buying new technology and running platforms, they can use the Test Lab that we have – one is based in the UK, and the other in mainland Europe. But it allows them to integrate their data, run AI models and gives them the opportunity to then sample what they want to do; a bit of a sandbox, per se.
There are plenty of different ideas that we can explore the use of AI and help our partners to achieve their goals. We have an ecosystem of partners where we will work alongside them to create and develop different AI models that our network can then use.
The biggest thing is really finding people and helping them in that journey to realise their vision for AI technology; that’s really the biggest challenge that we are facing.
In your view, can the increased adoption of AI technologies have any benefits for promoting responsible gambling and ESG practices?
Absolutely! From a responsible gambling perspective, there’s so much that can be done with regards to age and identity verification. That process is wholly necessary but can take some time. By using AI, igaming companies can expedite that process and verify their users in a much quicker manner.
The use of AI also means that igaming operators can flag any irresponsible gambling behaviours and identify how they can best support that bettor with responsible gambling tools. In the long term, I think that this will create a more well-rounded, customer-friendly experience and, ultimately, it will help create a safer environment for bettors.
How is Fujitsu using AI to offer a more secure, private storage solution for igaming operators?
I think the big thing with AI is obviously around data. With a lot of gaming organisations, they own their player data – it’s an IP, as it were. We therefore need to look at how we would offer a more secure and private solution to those companies looking to protect that data.
At Fujitsu, we would offer them a technology stack which enables them to build their own environment on. This is much more secure than them having to upload their data to a public cloud environment, which often leaves companies unsure as to where their data is. We can give you all of the kit that you need to run your modelling on and keep the data yourself, rather than having to move all of that data into a public cloud environment.
Given how prominent this technology has become in day-to-day operations, how can we ensure that the igaming industry is using AI in a way that is both ethical and sustainable? Are there certain considerations that igaming companies should make before incorporating AI into their work systems?
The big thing, I believe, is that we’re going to see a lot more government intervention when it comes to what you can and can’t do with artificial intelligence. This is, no doubt, going to become more apparent as AI technology becomes more advanced. We really need to be aware of any regulatory changes when considering using this as a complement to our existing systems.
Looking at the betting and gaming industry specifically, AI can be a great tool for better understanding player behaviours. This can then be used to create customer loyalty schemes. Operators have all of that data on the players that have gambled at their casinos or via their sportsbooks, but quite often, that data isn’t analysed any further. AI could help streamline that data analysis process and help operators to better understand and reward their players.