- Intel collaborated with Arizona State University (ASU) to equip its football program with Lenovo ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition PCs powered by Intel vPro®.
- Intel engineers co-developed a custom, built-in play card AI agent that automatically translates opponent game footage into digital whiteboard diagrams, leading to an ASU projected 15% to 20% reduction in game preparation time for ASU coaching staff.
- This athletics deployment serves as a blueprint for modern enterprises, showing how running AI locally can drive efficiency while protecting organizations’ proprietary data, even on the road.
In the fast-paced, highly competitive world of Division I college football, every second counts and every piece of data matters. The margins between winning and losing are thin, and programs are always searching for ways to optimize operations.
“You look at ten years ago without the technology... the countless and countless hours working just to find the competitive advantage,” says DJ Foster, Assistant Athletics Director for Player Development at Arizona State University (ASU).
Last year, we announced our collaboration with ASU – named the nation’s most innovative university for 11 consecutive years – to bring the next generation of computing directly to the Sun Devil football program. Since then, we’ve collaborated closely with the ASU football program to deploy Lenovo ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition PCs powered by the Intel vPro, an integrated platform built to give modern organizations peace of mind by acting as the security and management backbone for their AI-powered devices.
Beyond the hardware, we worked directly with the ASU coaching staff to understand how the AI PCs can create efficiencies within existing workflows. We discovered that creating play cards as part of game preparation was a labor-intensive task that cost the coaching staff hours. To solve this, our engineering team developed a custom, on device AI tool to fully automate play card creation.
This is just one example of how this collaboration shows the power of AI running locally in action. But the impact of this technology extends far beyond gridiron. It’s built to empower professionals at any organization across industries to elevate everyday productivity, content creation and communication, while unlocking new, untapped capabilities.
How Local AI Agents Are Already Changing the Game
Boosting efficiency and uninterrupted productivity: Intel AI PCs help ASU coaches spend less time on tedious manual work and more time developing players, planning strategy and recruiting. As DJ Foster noted, “Working with Intel AI PCs allows our coaching staff to be more efficient with their time.” Fast performance, extended battery life and strong connectivity keep that work moving wherever coaches are, while on-device AI processes data locally for faster insights and responsive workflows.
On-device IP protection: Traditional cloud-based AI requires uploading sensitive data to external servers. By using on-device AI, ASU’s intellectual property—playbook strategies, player health metrics, and game film analysis— can be processed locally and doesn’t leave the physical device, reducing data exposure risk and ensuring compliant AI use.
Traveling securely with Intel vPro: When coaches hit the road for away games, keeping their devices secure and supported off campus is critical. With Intel vPro’s remote management capabilities and security capabilities, IT teams have the visibility, manageability and control needed to oversee staff’s AI device deployments from anywhere no matter the state of the OS.
The Next Play: Agentic AI in Action
Hardware deployment is just the beginning. Over the last six months, ASU and Intel collaborated to create a proof-of-concept tool that automates the time-intensive process of creating practice play cards, which football teams use to visually map out player formations, routes, and blocking schemes to prepare the team for upcoming games.
Traditionally, manually drawing out plays costs hours of the coaching staff time. With the play card agent, staff can upload opponent game footage directly to the PC. From there, the agent identifies offensive and defensive player positions, tracks players' movements as the play unfolds, and automatically creates digital “whiteboard” drawings for further analysis.
The coaching staff expect this agent could save them up to 15-20% of their game prep time. Looking ahead, the play card agent could be adapted for other aspects of game analysis like advanced scouting, helping the coaching staff identify opponent's tendencies and strategic opportunities more effectively.
From the Gridiron to the Modern Enterprise
The application of AI agents running locally on devices within the high-stakes world of Division I athletics is a powerful example of how these devices can drive time savings and operational efficiency, but we’re still only scratching the surface of its greater long-term impact. For any organization, the lesson is clear: AI is most valuable when you can run it where it makes the most financial and practical sense. Intel-powered agentic devices bring these smart tools directly to the device, helping professionals cut down on cloud fees, keep sensitive information private and secure, and give IT teams better control over how systems run.
By pairing local AI performance with Intel vPro security and manageability Intel AI devices can give organizations a practical path to scale AI across organizations of all sizes, reshaping the future of workplace productivity.
