Betable managing director Daniel Brookes is making the case that iGaming operators are approaching artificial intelligence adoption from entirely the wrong direction.
Rather than beginning with the technology itself, Brookes argues that businesses should first identify the specific operational problems they need to solve.
AI has expanded rapidly across the iGaming sector, with applications already emerging in personalisation, customer support, compliance, risk management, and player protection.
The pace of development has created pressure on operators to demonstrate they have an AI strategy in place, but Brookes warns that this pressure can lead businesses astray.
Asking a room full of people where AI could be applied will likely produce dozens of ideas, but that does not mean all of them are worth pursuing.
At Betable, the focus is on identifying bottlenecks first, including which repetitive tasks consume valuable time and where useful information exists but remains difficult to access.
Decisions that stall because someone must first find, compile, or interpret data before anything can move forward represent exactly the kind of problem AI is well-suited to address.
Brookes draws on his experience founding Daysi, an AI website assistant, as a practical illustration of this problem-first philosophy in action.
“We didn’t start by asking how we could add AI to a website,” he explained, noting that the starting point was instead a familiar and clearly defined problem facing businesses online.
Visitors to websites have questions, businesses are not always available to answer them, and unanswered questions can translate directly into lost commercial opportunities.
The solution using AI made sense precisely because there was already a clear and well-understood job for it to do, rather than technology searching for a purpose.
Brookes acknowledges that while the context within iGaming differs from other sectors, the underlying principle of leading with the problem remains consistent and applicable.
Operators that chase AI for its own sake risk investing time and resources into tools that do not meaningfully improve how their teams work day to day.
The businesses most likely to benefit are those that approach the technology with discipline, asking hard questions about where time is actually being lost before committing to any solution.
