How to use AI in sponsorship without losing the plot
In case you hadn’t noticed, Artificial Intelligence is reshaping sponsorship. Technologies like VISUA and Entyx now offer frame-by-frame analysis of broadcasts, identifying logo placement, screen time, clarity, and share of voice with millisecond precision. Sponsorship professionals can finally quantify exposure in a way that links directly to value and justify it with data that’s no longer reliant on assumptions. But data isn’t strategy and that’s where we find the true limits of AI in sponsorship.
No more (or much less) guesswork
The tech excels at removing uncertainty. In the NHL, virtual dasherboards can shift regionally, with performance measured in real time. VISUA processes every frame to show not just whether a brand appeared, but how clearly it did, how long it was on screen, and what context surrounded it. This is sponsorship valuation in ultra-HD and it makes traditional media equivalency models look outdated. AI-driven analytics are fast becoming an expectation rather than a differentiator.
What AI still can’t do
For all its speed and precision, AI in sponsorship alone can’t build trust, sell a vision, or create emotional resonance. It can’t read the room when a partner’s priorities are changing (yet).
In the latest ONSIDE Sports Impact Monitor, 70% of sponsorship leaders see major opportunity in AI, but over half also express concern about over-automation, data privacy, and a loss of human touch. That tension is telling: the tools are advancing, but relationships still close the deal.
As sponsorship continues to highlight immersive, audience-first storytelling, human input becomes more valuable, not less. It takes people to connect brand purpose with fan passion. AI can flag what worked last time, but people must decide what might work next.
In an interview with The Sponsor, we spoke with Sandro Cisco, former Global Head of Sponsorship at Kaspersky, who discussed the importance of person-to-person internal measurements, which sometimes involved direct feedback.
The future of AI in sponsorship is hybrid
The most effective sponsorship teams will blend AI’s analytical power with human intelligence, creativity, and intuition. This is especially true in emerging markets and categories. Research points to significant rising interest in women’s sport, padel, esports, and local infrastructure projects. These opportunities require careful alignment, local insight, and shared goals: things that AI assistance can, as the phrase suggests, merely help with.
AI in sponsorship is a lever, and a very powerful one, but it mustn’t be the whole machine. The future of sponsorship will absolutely be more data-driven, but it will also be, unavoidably, human. And that’s a good thing.
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