SprintAI, an artificial intelligence startup founded to help improve athlete performance, has signed its first NHL team client, the Buffalo Sabres. This deployment will include a new general manager module designed to aid hockey operations with administration and management.
Sabres general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen previously advised SprintAI before joining Buffalo as a senior advisor in May 2025 and receiving a promotion to GM last December. Kekäläinen helped SprintAI conceive of and develop the GM module prior to joining the Sabres organization.
“The massive amount of information and data that we get these days, how you can pull it into one desktop and have a whole view on your screen where the data gets processed into a simple form by AI?” Kekäläinen said. “It gives you alerts, recommendations and info that’s already been brought into one place and processed rather than you getting different reports from different silos on your desk where you’re trying to put five different reports together in your head.”
The NFL’s Rams are the one other publicly identified pro sports team partner of SprintAI, which also supports the Association of Sports Performance Centers, a consortium of 114 Olympic, Paralympic and elite training facilities.
SprintAI is a Finnish company founded by Juha Tiihonen, a longtime digital media executive who worked on projects with Nokia, Disney, FIBA and NBC’s Olympics coverage. The other co-founders include former NFL executive Mikko Simon and mobile games creator Timo Soininen. F1 driver Valtteri Bottas is an investor and motorsports advisor.
“Agentic AI changes the model from people constantly having to search for information to an environment where the system understands context, monitors what is changing and proactively helps prepare the organization for its next decision,” Tiihonen said.
As data and analytics continue to proliferate sports team front offices, SprintAI seeks to help decision makers — whether coaches and sport scientists or, now, general managers and other executives — distill the disparate inputs into more actionable insights. Its algorithms work on each organization’s proprietary data and workflows.
After leaving his post as GM of the Blue Jackets, Kekäläinen used the time as a sabbatical of sorts, delving deep into the potential of AI to help a club. The experience led him to SprintAI and helped him realize the importance of being a first mover, which he believes will help the Sabres gain an edge.
Kekäläinen said embracing AI will be “a bit of a cultural shift” but necessary to improve efficiency and evolve.
“This is something that I really believe in, that it’s common and it’s going to be part of the future,” he said. “The sooner we get on it, the more of a competitive advantage we can get rather than let five different teams get on it before we do, and then we’ll be the ones couple steps behind. I’d rather be a couple steps ahead.”