Fantasy Premier League Companion gives managers a new tool for success
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.
What is the Fantasy Premier League Companion?
Selby: The FPL Companion builds on the existing Premier League Companion, which is an AI-powered conversational interface, and it’s really an opportunity for FPL managers and people who have started to play fantasy for the first time to better understand the game, to get better access to information in a way that’s conversational and is easy to understand.
Selby: It also allows for more engaged players to really dig in on data and make that easily accessible. If you’ve played any level of fantasy sports, you’ll know there is a depth of data that exists in any sport and FPL is no different. There are a bunch of metrics that are very specific to the FPL game itself. And so, we’ve given Copilot access to all of that. But the managers of the teams remain in control of their own squads. You can ask very basic questions like, “Who should I have in my team this week?” Or you can get very specific: “I’m interested in bringing strikers in, who are the options that I should consider based on shots in the box?” New managers get the help they may need at the start and advanced managers can look for edges in the data to try and gain an advantage. You can ask it pretty much any question and Companion will provide a contextually relevant answer.
Can FPL Companion just run someone’s team then?
Selby: It’s definitely not there to be an autopilot for your team. It will not predict FPL points. It is very important to us that FPL managers themselves are making their own decisions. You’re the manager of your own team; it’s your call at the end of the day. The role of FPL Companion is not to do that instead of you. It’s to help you make better, informed decisions.
Because there’s never one single right answer. Football by its very nature is very unpredictable. So, if I had someone on my team and he’s injured, Companion might say, okay, you could look at [Chelsea’s] Cole Palmer, or [Arsenal’s] Bukayo Saka or [Manchester City’s] Antoine Semenyo. It will always give you a number of options. It will give you the relevant data to back it up. It will link to a relevant editorial where we’ve tackled similar questions, but you then as the manager are going to go and make that decision.
How will FPL Companion help new fantasy managers gain a foothold?
Selby: I think fantasy sports broadly across any sport can be seen as quite daunting. It can be seen as something for people who are really hardcore fans or have a deep understanding of scoring and things like that. And the key point of this is it’s not that scary.
You can come in, you’ve got a conversational interface, you can ask questions – no question’s a dumb question – and you’re going to get an answer to it. You’re going to get an answer from the trusted data source that is our database of match data and FPL data.
A new user’s first weeks on the platform is where I see lots of value. Before they may get stuck or confused. Now, as the user’s knowledge of FPL and skill set grows, Companion moves with it. So at first, they might be asking, “How do I pick my team?”; “Explain how these chips work?”; ”How do I set up a league with friends?” What I’m looking forward to seeing is them getting further into the season and asking more informed questions: “Which striker takes the most shots?” “Which goalkeeper has the best fixtures coming up?”
How did the Premier League’s wealth of data help inform the Companion?
Selby: There are two buckets. There’s match data. That is, goals, assists, appearances, cards, minutes on the pitch, number of tackles, number of shots, which is, what is happening in the matches, what has happened in the matches historically, etc.
That is information which you can access already, but you need to know where to look for it. You need to know how to navigate the tables. That being accessible through Companion is a bit of a game changer to quickly finding and digesting that information.
Then there’s game data, the game being FPL in this instance. That is data which only exists because FPL exists as a game. And so that could be the number of transfers that a player has had, the number of managers that have captained a certain player, the number of managers that have played certain chips.
That stuff you can only get through Fantasy Premier League. You are taking those two data sets and pulling that together to give recommendations. When I’m asking, “My player is injured, who should I bring in as a replacement?” Companion is able to bring together those two data sets and say, here is the performance of the last six game weeks, which players are popular and which players may have the best fixtures.
How do you see FPL Companion helping fans gain a deeper connection beyond match day?
Selby: Historically, we’re used to fans supporting specific clubs, but what we’re seeing more and more is fans following specific athletes and FPL is a unique way to do that. They might say, “I had Morgan Gibbs-White on my team last season. I’m not a Nottingham Forest fan, but he had a great season. So, I’m now interested in Forest. I’m now interested in Gibbs-White, wherever he goes.”
With Companion, fans can have a conversation across the week and there’s new information and that will be updated. So, if I’m asking a question on Tuesday and then I ask the same question on Thursday, I might get a slightly different answer because there’s been news that’s come in and all of that is fed into Companion in real time.
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.
