Fan engagement accelerates one year after relaunch
ARMONK, N.Y., May 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- As the Formula 1 season arrives in United States for the first time in 2026 for the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Ferrari today introduced – new and enhanced AI powered capabilities to the Scuderia Ferrari app experience. The highly interactive features were designed to bring Scuderia Ferrari's passionate global fanbase of nearly 400 million Tifosi closer than ever to the team, the drivers and the cars they love – on race day and beyond.
Built with IBM watsonx, the enhanced AI Companion acts as a digital guide, helping fans uncover everything from race‑week insights to Scuderia Ferrari HP history in a more intuitive and personalized way. Conversation-style prompts can be used to ask questions about the team, the drivers, the race season and more (e.g. "How does the SF-26 differ from previous Ferrari and/or Formula 1 cars?"). Watsonx Orchestrate technology is then used to surface contextual responses grounded in current and historical Scuderia Ferrari HP data, as well as curated knowledge sources.
The new unified Game Center is a dynamic destination where fans can participate in race predictors, quizzes and challenges tied to live Grand Prix moments. With global leaderboards, digital achievements and badges, and social media based competition, the Game Center transforms each race weekend into a playful, shared experience for all Tifosi — deepening connections and driving repeat engagement across the season. Within the Game Center, the new always-on Countdown Quiz complements existing Daily and GP-specific quizzes with a timed format that challenges users to test their knowledge against a 60-second limit. The new Achievements tab – located in the Profile section – features digital badges that fans can unlock through participation, with functionality to easily share their accomplishments across social networks.
Across race weekends, the enhanced Race Center experience complements this interactivity by delivering deeper detailed session timelines as the action on track unfolds, improved real-time driver data, and curated insights that follow Scuderia Ferrari HP from practice through to race day.
"Fans today expect more than just access to information — they want to feel closer to the action, to the drivers, the teams, and to each other," said Jonathan Adashek, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM. "By putting AI at the core of the Scuderia Ferrari HP app experience, we are transforming how millions of Tifosi engage with the sport. It is a powerful example of how technology can turn data into meaningful, memorable experiences at scale."
As the Official Fan Engagement and Data Analytics Partner for Scuderia Ferrari HP, IBM worked closely with the team to redesign and redevelop their mobile app experience, putting watsonx AI at the core of the experience. Since relaunching in May 2025, monitoring has showed that the app has seen a 35% increase in cumulative downloads and a 36% increase in Average Monthly Active Users, with Average Race Active Users increasing by 56%. Engagement has also increased significantly in the past year, evidenced by a 62% increase in Views and a 35% lift in Engaged Sessions.
IBM will continue rolling out new features on the Scuderia Ferrari HP app throughout the 2026 season.
Download the redesigned Scuderia Ferrari mobile app, available for mobile devices, in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Click here to learn more about IBM and the Scuderia Ferrari app.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.
Media contact:
IBM
Paul Pettas
paulpettas@ibm.com
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
IBM Debuts New AI-Powered Features for the Scuderia Ferrari App
IBM Debuts New AI-Powered Features for the Scuderia Ferrari App
The following article is authored by Neil Dhar, Senior Vice President, IBM Consulting Americas
ARMONK, N.Y., May 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Next week at Think 2026, we'll outline the forces shaping the Enterprise AI Race, forces that apply with particular urgency to private equity. The organizations gaining ground today are not the ones betting on a single model. They are the ones redesigning how their businesses operate, building hybrid architectures that give them control, and deploying AI in ways that orchestrate value that compounds over time.
The private equity industry understands this better than most. The days of pilots and promises are over, and the demand for hard proof (a.k.a. ROI) has begun. Is your revenue accelerating? Can you drive efficiency and profitability at the same time? What does long-term growth look like? These are the questions sitting across the table at every board meeting and investment committee, and the pressure is only intensifying.
This pressure has forced major PE firms to move aggressively to formalize their AI strategies, including exploring joint ventures with leading LLM companies. They're making a calculated bet on AI as the most powerful value‑creation lever the industry has seen in its history, and they recognize that the window to move is now.
The logic is unmistakable. PE firms don't run single businesses, they run portfolios. Which means AI playbooks that work don't just transform one company; they compound across ten, twenty, fifty, hundreds. A workflow reinvented once becomes a repeatable asset. A governance framework built once becomes portfolio infrastructure. That multiplier effect is native to how PE creates value, and it's what makes the intersection of private equity and enterprise AI one of the most consequential arenas in business right now.
The bet is a no-brainer. Execution is where it gets hard.
Here's what we know to be true: competitive advantage won't come from betting on a single LLM. It will come from building AI tailored to your business, shifting to a hybrid strategy that combines custom models, foundation models, and smaller specialized models, all grounded in an architecture that connects your data, your workflows, and your intelligence. In private equity, where the same playbook has to work across an entire portfolio, that distinction isn't academic. It's the difference between value that compounds and value that stalls.
We know this because we lived it. We turned our own operations into the proving ground, analyzing nearly 400 operational workflows and deploying AI solutions across more than 100 so far, coupled with AI governance and enablement.
The result was $4.5B in productivity gains from AI, hybrid cloud, automation and consulting expertise, and proof of what works.
We then took that proof and productized those validated workflows into IBM Enterprise Advantage, a first-of-its-kind asset-based consulting service that enables clients to build and operate their own tailored internal AI platform at scale.
With digital workers, prebuilt tools, and native governance, clients have a headstart rather than a blank slate. And because it's multi-model, they retain the freedom to shift as technology evolves. For private equity, that flexibility determines whether a company is an asset or a liability at exit.
We're bringing this same approach to private equity-backed companies, where the defining question is what changed and can you prove it.
- A major U.S. telecommunications provider is deploying digital workers and prebuilt AI tools from Enterprise Advantage to accelerate the migration of more than 150 critical applications, delivering measurable savings within two quarters.
- Working with a leading insurance administrator, IBM is using agentic AI to overhaul end-to-end claims processing, a function where a single claim can involve dozens of tightly regulated steps across multiple systems. AI agents now read and structure claim documents, perform compliance checks, assess eligibility, and route cases automatically, resulting in faster cycle times, fewer bottlenecks, and an operating model built to scale.
What private equity does here will ripple far beyond its own portfolios. When PE-backed companies deploy production-ready AI across the business, they reset competitive expectations for entire industries, forcing every competitor to respond. That is the Enterprise AI Race playing out in real time.
The choices made today will define portfolio performance for the next decade. Move too slowly and you're handing the advantage to every competitor who didn't. Move without discipline and you're betting the portfolio on a foundation that hasn't been proven. The firms that win will be the ones who understood that distinction early enough to do something about it.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.
Media contact:
IBM
Lily O'Brien
lilyobrien@ibm.com
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
Private Equity's AI Moment: The Greatest Value Lever in Decades -- and the Hardest to Pull
