Bundesliga launches Captain AI assistant in official app

The Bundesliga has rolled out a new AI feature in its official app, positioning the product as a personalised companion that can surface video highlights, live statistics and historical knowledge through a chat interface.The assistant, called Captain, has been developed with Amazon Web Services and is designed to reduce friction for fans who want specific clips, context and data without switching between multiple platforms.Bastian Zuber, chief product and technology officer of Bundesliga Media, said: “With the help of cutting-edge AI implementation, we are opening up a new dimension of football content for fans. Captain delivers what football enthusiasts have asked of us in the past: it makes real-time statistics, historical data and our comprehensive Bundesliga video content individually accessible to them. This has been achieved thanks in no small part to the excellent collaboration with our partner AWS.”Captain is built around dialogue-based search and recommendations, with users able to ask questions about the Bundesliga, individual matches, clubs and players in German and English.A featured use case is clip discovery, with the Bundesliga citing prompts such as requesting a player’s headed goals, which Captain can answer by generating a tailored video playlist.The product also adds personalisation based on user interests and behaviour in the app, combining live match insight with historical Bundesliga data and contextual information for specific clubs.Julie Souza, AWS global head of sports, said: “Fans can get overwhelmed with fragmented information across multiple apps and platforms. Captain brings everything into one intelligent companion that knows decades of football history, understands what’s happening on the pitch in real time, and adapts to each individual fan. Whether you’ve followed the Bundesliga for 20 years or are discovering the sport as soccer takes center stage this summer, Captain meets you where you are.”The launch also includes a gamified “Coach Mode” that delivers a daily football quiz and a points-based leaderboard, with country rankings reflecting the feature’s international availability.Bundesliga Media is positioning Coach Mode as both retention and acquisition tooling, with adaptive difficulty intended to keep experienced fans engaged while onboarding newer audiences through rules, tactics and football history.Captain is live during the Bundesliga summer break and Bundesliga Media said it has access to FIFA World Cup 2026 match data as well as past World Cups, widening the assistant’s utility beyond domestic competition windows.Bundesliga Media said Captain will be continuously developed based on data and user feedback, with the feature learning from interactions and expanding over time.The next steps are driving adoption via app updates, testing which query types convert best into video consumption, and iterating product features that can increase session time and engagement across the next season cycle.