College Athletics

From Marketplace to Operating System: Applied AI and the NIL Back Office

The first wave of NIL software solved discovery — match an athlete to a brand. The revenue-sharing era turned NIL into an ongoing operation someone has to run. Marketplaces don't run operations. Operating systems do, and that's where applied AI earns its keep.

Discovery in the NIL economy is solved. The unsolved, expensive part is the back office — deals, disclosures, compliance, payments — at scale. Here's where applied AI fits, and where judgment still has to win.

The Future of AI in College Athletics: What NIL Taught Us About Building for Chaos

NIL turned college sports into a fast-moving, lightly-governed market overnight. That's exactly the kind of mess AI is good at — and exactly the kind of mess that punishes software built without judgment. Here's where we think AI actually fits.