IBM and ESPN have announced the launch of new AI-powered features for the 2025 fantasy football season. The collaboration introduces "Fantasy Insights Built with IBM watsonx" to the ESPN Fantasy Football app, which serves over 14 million users. This tool provides personalized recommendations generated from more than 36 billion insights collected throughout the season.

The new feature appears on the app's home page, offering users an AI-generated overview of key players each week. It utilizes a range of data-driven categories to identify these players, building on existing AI tools such as Waiver Grades, Trade Grades, Boom and Bust probabilities, and the Trade Analyzer. These are designed to process large amounts of data into actionable information for fantasy managers.

Jonathan Adashek, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM, said: "Fantasy football is all about optimizing decision making, and AI is helping fans make them with deeper insights. With Fantasy Insights Built With IBM watsonx, we're putting the power of watsonx into the hands of millions of people on the ESPN Fantasy Football app, helping them make smarter, more informed decisions while also showcasing the same capabilities businesses around the world use to scale AI."

For 2025, several new categories have been added to help users make roster decisions:

- Buy Low Sell High: Identifies players who faced strong defenses recently but will play weaker opponents soon.

- Diamond in the Rough: Highlights players owned by fewer than 85% of leagues who have performed exceptionally well for two consecutive weeks.

- Trade Bait: Flags players underperforming for two weeks but still widely rostered.

Additional categories powered by watsonx models include predictions for top performers ("Predicted Top Boom"), likely underperformers ("Predicted Top Bust"), those gaining media attention ("Hot in the Media" and "Media Darlings"), high-risk options ("Risky Business"), consistent performers ("Sure Thing"), and potential breakout candidates ("Game Breaker").

ESPN leverages watsonx.data to centralize information from various sources before it is analyzed by AI models. This integration aims to improve user engagement across ESPN platforms by providing unique features tailored to fans.

Users can join ESPN Fantasy Football by signing up at ESPN.com/FFL or downloading the app from major mobile stores.