Joe Hall
Co-Founder & Co-CEO
Gift&Go
Joe Hall is a hands-on financial technology, iGaming and ecommerce expert with 15 years’ experience across commercial, operational and technology roles in both B2B and B2C environments. Joe is a former member of the management team at Paysafe and former UK Managing Director at eToro.
Rasmus Kjaergaard
CEO
Mindway AI
Rasmus Kjaergaard has grown Mindway AI from a small startup to the fast-growing software company it is today. Rasmus’ focus is on the commercial and strategic development of Mindway AI through product innovation, partnerships and market expansions. Rasmus is deeply invested in the safer gambling agenda and a firm believer in the power of partnerships and collaboration in the pursuit of better player protection. Rasmus has 20+ years of experience in leadership and B2B sales of complex tech solutions and services in both private and public sectors.
Mridula Saini
Chief Revenue Officer
IKASI
Mridula Saini leads IKASI teams for both domestic and global markets. She has demonstrated success in seven countries for over 20 years and has produced unprecedented results in both B2B and B2C segments with billion-dollar enterprises and early-stage startups. Mridula has a Master’s Degree from Stanford University and an engineering degree from Rohilkhand University.
Olga Ivanchik
Head of WebStudio
Softswiss
Olga Ivanchik: As Head of WebStudio for SoftSwiss, Olga leads the team, responsible for handling requirements gathering, design project creation, graphics, layout, configuration, testing, licensing, payment system integration, and game provider connection, among many other things, to ensure that operators successfully launch their online casinos for players.
How has AI already benefited your business?
Our customers in the gaming industry are leveraging AI to: gain insight into and anticipate player actions; implement targeted campaigns based on their specific interests and location; and decrease player attrition while enhancing the lifetime value of each player
Mridula Saini
Joe Hall:
We’ve been seeing the benefit of AI modelling, specifically the creation, training and deployment of machine learning algorithms, that assist our clients in finding the best gifts and rewards to include in their promotions. Our Gift & Go AI enables our clients to deliver personalised rewards and experiences at scale, suggesting the most relevant and desirable gifts to offer as part of a loyalty rewards program. When applied at scale, we can run personalised loyalty programs for millions of players who will all see a different selection of rewards that are relevant to them. This wouldn’t be possible without AI.
Rasmus Kjaergaard:
AI is fundamental to our business, it’s not only part of our name but built into our DNA. Our GameScanner solution is built on a combination of AI along with neuroscientific insights and human psychologist expert assessments, which allows operators to accelerate and effectively manage player protection. Through AI we currently detect more than 6.5 million active players per month globally. Our algorithm is trained to weigh different indicators of behaviour to provide insights, which we call Explainable AI. This allows operators to easily and more individually identify players who are flagged as at-risk and intervene at an early stage before a problem escalates.
Mridula Saini:
The gaming industry has shown massive interest in AI, and it’s already been proven to help casinos increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their marketing and customer engagement efforts. Our customers in the gaming industry are leveraging AI to: gain insight into and anticipate player actions; implement targeted campaigns based on their specific interests and location; and decrease player attrition while enhancing the lifetime value of each player. By providing insights and recommendations based on data analysis, casinos using IKASI AI in their marketing programs have seen as much as a 5-10% increase in net revenue, adding millions of additional dollars to the bottom line.
Olga Ivanchik:
At Softswiss, we have WebStudio – a department responsible for creating online casino projects from the initial idea to launching the finished project. We keep an eye on innovation and strive to implement the most cutting-edge tools into our work. In 2022, AI reached another high point, and it was impossible to stay away, so we decided to give it a try. We realised we could also leverage them, especially in graphic design, a very labour-intensive trade. We started using it to design project layouts and banners and select graphics to make them most attractive and eye-catching, as this scope is generally quite time-consuming. We can already see the benefits of using AI – it saves designers and illustrators time in drafting initial templates. At the same time, we get more high-quality, detailed and unique images for post-processing while designers enjoy extra freedom in their creative work.
How important do you see AI being going forward?
We believe AI alone is not enough
Rasmus Kjaergaard
Joe Hall:
It’s a critical, ever evolving part of the business that continues to drive superb results for our clients. We’re consistently iterating our AI and machine learning models, and in terms of development spend we continue to invest more in this area than in any other. Our latest development sees the integration of customer data from our partners at Amazon and Best Buy, using new techniques to analyse player behaviour, preferences, and habits to select the most relevant rewards for each player. This has created a new breed of loyalty experience, one where players receive a reward that they truly want, generating levels of brand affinity that were simply not possible in the past. In turn this also gives new data sets to our gaming operator clients, giving them valuable insights to further optimise their business and tailor their offerings to the preferences of their players.
Rasmus Kjaergaard:
AI is extremely important when you are looking to find specific patterns and doing individualised profiling on masses of data. However, we believe AI alone is not enough. Human assessment by expert psychologists in problem gambling, in conjunction with AI, is part of our data model approach. So, you might say we are replicating these human experts for the AI algorithm to be a virtual psychologist. Having a combined approach of machine learning and human experience and knowledge comes with an opportunity of having not only a very comprehensive profile of each player, and a more accurate solution, but also allows for earlier detection and monitoring, which is invaluable.
Mridula Saini:
AI adoption is a huge tipping point in gaming, and there will be winners and losers. Those properties that get ahead of the curve and adopt AI, especially in their database marketing efforts – one of the most impactful touch points a casino has with its customers – will have a significant edge over the laggards in terms of wallet share and player satisfaction. When AI is driving the decisions, it enables the property to break away from the limitations of human understanding and analysis and make more complex and specific decisions for each individual player. The result will be significant gains in terms of net revenue and will give the players the offers they really want – and will respond to – instead of a potential blanket of offers where you’re hoping at least one gives them a sense of urgency or desire to come visit the property.
Olga Ivanchik:
Softswiss focuses on innovation, and artificial intelligence is high on the agenda. However, it is essential not simply to pick up and implement trends but to unlock the potential they are bringing. I believe it is very important to continue exploiting AI, in design as well. It helps streamline teamwork, polish creative ideas, and bring finished projects to a new level.
At the same time, it is crucial to understand that AI is not a magic stick that will do all the work for you. It is rather an assistant to drive your performance if applied consistently. The more our designers work with AI, the better the algorithm is trained to deliver high-quality results.
How has AI impacted retention of staff?
Our AI initiatives will continue to increase as the year progresses, we have some truly incredible features coming in Q4 that will change the game yet again!
Joe Hall
Joe Hall:
In a positive way! We continue to invest in our technology teams that specialise in AI, as we see it as a core part of our product offering. We’re at the stage where our AI is helping our human staff with day-to-day activities and changing the game at scale on the product-selection side of our business. Our AI initiatives will continue to increase as the year progresses, we have some truly incredible features coming in Q4 that will change the game yet again! Our staff can see the impacts our AI has for our operator clients and players and that increases staff retention! In March we were announced as the 5th fastest growing company in Europe by the Financial Times, something that wouldn’t have been possible without our investments in AI.
Rasmus Kjaergaard:
We see AI as a tool that staff can potentially use in various different ways to offload more administrative tasks and to free up more time to concentrate on duties aligned with their skill set. With AI becoming a household term, and the explosion of use cases already out there, it is producing some of the most effective and groundbreaking results in business today. To the RG teams at gambling operators using our GameScanner, this means getting the opportunity to reallocate RG resources spent from a lot of manual work done automatically by GameScanner, and to focus on the most severe cases. So, to speak more RG done with the same resources. With us at Mindway AI, having AI built into what we do as a business is exciting for our team and opens many doors for future product innovation in addition to career development opportunities.
Mridula Saini:
While we haven’t seen an effect on staff retention, we consistently observe that by leveraging AI, there is a significant reduction in the resource demands of database marketing teams. They are able to accomplish the same volume of work but with greater impact, which increases their sense of accomplishment, promoting better staff retention.
Olga Ivanchik:
My goal was to encourage the team to start using AI. Sometimes finding time to try something new can be hard, and AI can diversify a designer’s routine. To motivate the team, I launched a competition for a prize. We asked our designers to update the online casino frontend templates, making the most of the AI technology. That is, to revise the idea and create new banners, graphics, whatever. On the one hand, the designers could practise, experiment and implement their long-held ideas that didn’t fit with client tasks. And on the other hand, we got a lot of unique templates to offer clients just from the start. Our designers got very inspired – the competition motivated them to implement their ideas and dive deeper into the AI world, discovering new horizons in using the tool and unlocking additional potential in themselves. Now nothing can curb their enthusiasm!
What is your stance on using programs such as ChatGPT?
Our experience shows that such tools help optimise performance and increase efficiency. But proficiency in using them is key
Olga Ivanchik
Joe Hall:
The Open AI LLM’s and GPT-4 specifically are fantastic initiatives that will only increase in popularity as time goes on. From writing emails and answering CS tickets to predicting the best possible reward for a player, these applications have a long way to go and it’s been really interesting watching mass adoption and seeing where the next trend lies. As a business we’re using Open AI API’s for certain tasks and will continue to apply them to our business where it makes sense.
Rasmus Kjaergaard:
It is exciting to see the advancement of next-generation AI systems like ChatGPT, Bard and others. Of course, it is in its infancy so it’s difficult to say exactly how these technologies will drive productivity and shape businesses in years to come. The term “GPT” originates from the phrase generative pre-trained transformer. Meaning that text is generated based on the user’s questioning or instructions. While ChatGPT brings new a new wave of possibilities, it is important to have organizational processes properly aligned to enable humans and AI to work together effectively. We are still only in the dial up internet phase of applications like chat ChatGPT and need to allow time to cut through the modem noise!
Mridula Saini:
Time will certainly reveal the full or limited potential of ChatGPT, but I think casinos could leverage it to help expedite certain menial tasks, such as creating a starting point quickly for certain content creation/marketing materials. But, in my opinion, ChatGPT in its current form can’t be blindly trusted due to its inaccuracy and lack of causal understanding. It’s an exciting stepping stone in the gaming industry, but until it can be supplemented by tools that verify accuracy, it is not yet ready for enterprise use.
Olga Ivanchik:
We are focused on AI programs that are intended for working with graphics. Our experience shows that such tools help optimise performance and increase efficiency. But proficiency in using them is key. It's probably the same with ChatGPT – it can empower various trades, but it is vital to learn how to use it. We must also remember that AI can help improve your performance, but there’s no way it’s doing your job. It is also important not to rely entirely on such programs and to carefully process their deliverables. For example, Midjorney may add extra fingers or other body parts to people in its images. Therefore, post-processing is a must-have. On the whole, we are optimistic about using AI, but only if supervised by a human to verify its output.
