Ferrari and IBM Are Using AI Fan Engagement to Turn Casual Viewers Into Superfans
Scuderia Ferrari HP has teamed up with IBM to completely overhaul how the iconic Formula One team connects with its fans, and artificial intelligence is doing the heavy lifting.
The partnership, which centres on rebuilding the Ferrari fan app from the ground up, is a direct push into AI fan engagement as the sport continues its remarkable global growth. Formula One has exploded in popularity over the last few years, especially in the United States, largely fuelled by Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” series, which transformed drivers into household names. That surge in audience has made F1 a hot destination for major tech companies, with AWS, Oracle, and Anthropic already embedded across the paddock.
IBM saw the opportunity two years ago and went straight for one of the sport’s most storied teams. “They’re the winningest team in history,” said Kameryn Stanhouse, IBM’s Vice President of Sports and Entertainment Partnerships.
The revamped Ferrari app is now far more than a race schedule lookup tool. It features AI-written race summaries, behind-the-scenes stories, fan prediction games, multiplayer features, and an AI companion that answers fan questions in real time. The app was also made available in Italian for the first time, a surprising gap for a team with such deep Italian roots and a massive Italian fanbase.
At the core of the rebuild is a targeted AI fan engagement strategy built around storytelling. Ferrari hired Stefano Pallard in a newly created role as “head of fan development,” and his mandate is clear. “Making each fan feel like we know them,” he told TechCrunch. “That starts with taking the data we get from the track and turning it into content that is easy to follow and engaging.”
F1 teams process millions of data points per second during a race, capturing every movement of the car and driver. IBM is helping Ferrari turn that raw telemetry into digestible, compelling content, using AI to analyse engagement signals such as which stories fans read most and what sentiment fans express in messages, directly shaping what content gets prioritised.
The results are already measurable. Stanhouse cited a 62% increase in engagement over race weekends since IBM came on board.
Ferrari is also adapting to a rapidly changing fanbase. Formula One’s 2025 global fan survey revealed that 75% of new fans are women, many of them Gen Z, a demographic drawn in partly by the F1 Academy, the all-female racing series aimed at developing the next generation of women drivers. The app is being built with this broader audience in mind.
Pallard says the long-term vision is ambitious. “Whether they have been with us for 30 years or 30 days, that is how you build loyalty that lasts.” With AI fan engagement now central to Ferrari’s off-track strategy, the team is betting that the race for fans is just as important as the one on the circuit.
