Now that this summer’s thrilling tournament was capped off by a Spain victory, football fans across the globe are gearing up for the start of the Premier League season, which kicks off August 21. That includes the more than 13 million players who participate in Fantasy Premier League (FPL), the official fantasy contest for the league. In the game, managers have a £100 million budget to pick a squad of 15 players from across the league to try and score the most points throughout the campaign.
This season, managers are going to get another tool at their disposal, and not just the opportunity to choose Manchester City star Erling Haaland, who was the FPL’s top scorer last season. The Fantasy Premier League Companion powered by Copilot is built using Microsoft Foundry. It utilizes Azure OpenAI, Chat GPT 5.4 and official data from the Premier League to offer advice, answer questions and provide suggestions to managers as they build and maintain their squads.
To learn more about the new tool and what managers can expect, Andy Selby, senior gaming manager at the Premier League, sat down for a Q&A about the Fantasy Premier League Companion as it prepares to launch.
Where do you see this tool going in the future?
Selby: We will listen to users. We’ll be putting this out into the wild ahead of the new season and very quickly we’ll be able to see the sorts of questions that users are asking. Where are they spending the most time with this? What are the follow-up questions that are being asked?
There will be natural evolution across the season in terms of how it’s able to answer questions and the information it surfaces. We’ll see how users interact with it, what they respond positively to, and iterate from there.
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Elliott Smith writes about AI and innovation at Microsoft, from how the Premier League is transforming its online presence to why AI may play a major role in saving the Amazon rainforest. Previously, Smith worked as a sports reporter in Washington, D.C., Washington state and Texas, covering high schools to the pros. You can contact him on LinkedIn.
