ESPN Fantasy Football adds AI-powered weekly insights from IBM watsonx
IBM and ESPN are working together once more for the 2025 fantasy football season, introducing Fantasy Insights Built With IBM watsonx on the ESPN Fantasy Football app.
The new tool provides personalized, AI-powered recommendations based on over 36 billion insights generated throughout the season, helping fantasy managers make weekly roster choices with greater context and data-driven guidance.
Fantasy Insights is available on the app’s home page, offering an AI-generated overview of players that stand out each week.
It is built on top of IBM Player Insights, which already provides Waiver Grades, Trade Grades, Boom and Bust probabilities, and the Trade Analyzer.
By combining these tools, the app, which has than 14 million players, aims to turn massive amounts of data into insights fantasy managers can act on.
“Fantasy football is all about optimizing decision making, and AI is helping fans make them with deeper insights,” said Jonathan Adashek, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, IBM. “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.”
ESPN Fantasy Football categories
Among the new categories introduced for this season is Buy Low Sell High, which highlights players who recently faced strong defenses but will soon face opponents ranked in the bottom 25th percentile.
Diamond in the Rough points to players rostered in less than 85 percent of leagues who have scored in the 85th percentile for two consecutive weeks.
Trade Bait identifies players who have underperformed for two straight weeks while still being rostered in a majority of leagues.
The AI models also surface players in several other categories. Predicted Top Boom highlights those expected to over-perform in the upcoming week, while Predicted Top Bust identifies those forecasted to under-perform.
Hot in the Media tracks players who dominate media discussions, while Media Darlings highlights players with a tenfold increase in positive media sentiment who are rostered in less than 50 percent of leagues.
Risky Business refers to players with high projections who are returning from injury and rostered in a majority of leagues.
Sure Thing identifies players with consistent scoring floors, while Game Breaker points to players who have a high chance of surpassing their projections.
What do you think about IBM and ESPN’s new AI-powered Fantasy Insights? Let us know in the comments.