{"id":857277,"date":"2025-06-22T06:13:02","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T11:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/22\/interview-tech-innovation-at-bet365\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T06:13:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T11:13:02","slug":"interview-tech-innovation-at-bet365","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/22\/interview-tech-innovation-at-bet365\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Tech innovation at Bet365"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content-header\">\n<h2>Alan Reed, head of platform innovation at Bet365\u2019s Hillside Technology platform, discusses the role of generative AI in tech innovation<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"content-center\">\n<ul>\n<li><i data-icon=\"1\"><\/i><\/li>\n<li><i data-icon=\"2\"><\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"contributors-block\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/rms\/computerweekly\/Cliff-Saran-Sep-2022-140x180px.jpg\" alt=\"Cliff Saran\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><span>By<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.techtarget.com\/contributor\/Cliff-Saran\">Cliff Saran,<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Managing Editor<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n\tPublished: <span>19 Jun 2025 15:00<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<section id=\"content-body\">\n<p>Among the questions a head of technology may ponder are, what does it mean to be innovative, and perhaps, what technology can be used to drive an innovation strategy?<\/p>\n<p>Given the main way people tend to place bets with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bet365.com\/#\/HO\/\">Bet365<\/a> is via its mobile app, Alan Reed, head of platform innovation at Bet365\u2019s Hillside Technology platform, says: \u201cAs part of the remit of platform innovation, we look at the world beyond the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a recent Computer Weekly podcast, Reed talked about how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techtarget.com\/searchenterpriseai\/definition\/generative-AI\">generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)<\/a> changes the way people <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/blog\/Cliff-Sarans-Enterprise-blog\/GenAI-Talk-to-me\">interact with computers<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cWe are looking at the future of the workforce, and one of the things we have access to is the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Reed, one of the breakthroughs this technology offers is access to the Llama 4 large language AI models, which, he says, is simultaneously amazing and quite terrifying. \u201cYou can literally look at something, such as if you\u2019re in a restaurant and you can\u2019t translate the menu, and it will speak it into your ears.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr>\n<hr>\n<p>While he sees uses for such technology, Reed concedes that it raises <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/366623338\/AI-in-national-security-raises-proportionality-and-privacy-concerns\">privacy concerns<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It represents an interesting adaptation of the human-computer interface. The graphical user interface (GUI) that applications are built around, to paraphrase Sam Altman in his YouTube advert with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/366625379\/SXSW-An-immersive-experience-is-the-future-of-AI\">iPhone co-designer Jony Ive<\/a>, does not represent the best way to get ChatGPT to answer a question. The Ray-Ban Meta product shows the possibilities of using a voice user interface rather than relying 100% on a GUI, whether that is running on a PC or a smartphone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve used our phones for the last 15 years to do anything other than speak to other people,\u201d Reed adds, \u201cBut thanks to generative AI, we will want to use the phone button on our phones again.\u201d<\/p>\n<section data-menu-title=\"What to do with GenAI\">\n<h2><i data-icon=\"1\"><\/i>What to do with GenAI<\/h2>\n<p>Like many businesses, Bet365 is exploring how to use GenAI. For Reed, at an empirical level, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techtarget.com\/whatis\/feature\/Foundation-models-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know\">foundation model<\/a> is something that reads the internet and turns the information it gleans into data, which can then be reconstructed into sentences when queried.<\/p>\n<p>For the past few years, the betting company has been looking at using a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techtarget.com\/whatis\/definition\/large-language-model-LLM\">large language model<\/a> for coding, before it became one of the key use cases. \u201cIt\u2019s very obvious what can be done in the coding space,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>But while writing code is great, Reed says: \u201cWhat we were more interested in is, if it could read code, what could you understand?\u201d The particular problem Bet365 wanted to tackle was having the ability to understand its code base without the need for someone to read the code themselves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLike any large tech company or organisation that\u2019s been around for a number of years, you start to think of your technical data and your legacy code base, and that there is a percentage of your workforce just maintaining this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/366625045\/Interview-Pegas-Blueprint-for-breaking-the-curse-of-legacy-IT\">legacy code base<\/a>,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/rms\/computerweekly\/Alan-Reed-Bet365-140x180px.jpg\" alt>\n  <\/p>\n<p><span><strong><span>\u201cOnce you can get a level of comprehension from the AI, you can start to look at a value construct against your code and ask the bigger questions\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span>Alan Reed, Bet365<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The maintenance challenge is that people\u2019s understanding of how an application is programmed diminishes unless they frequently look at the code. \u201cEvery now and again, you realise you don\u2019t understand the code to the degree you need to for the task ahead,\u201d he says, referring to the difficulty in maintaining application code long term.<\/p>\n<p>There is another benefit: if the AI can understand the code, both as content and contextually, it becomes a powerful tool for IT transformation projects. \u201cOnce you can get a level of comprehension from the AI, you can start to look at a value construct against your code and ask the bigger questions,\u201d says Reed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Not only can GenAI be used to improve the maintainability and portability of code bases, but it can also help to identify common blocks of code to aid migration efforts.<\/p>\n<p>Referring to Bet365\u2019s migration programme, Reed says: \u201cOver a period of time, we put a lot of our business logic into databases. One of the things that we\u2019re looking at as we do a platform migration is to modernise this code in a similar way to how we did the cloud migration.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section data-menu-title=\"Summarising databases\">\n<h2><i data-icon=\"1\"><\/i>Summarising databases<\/h2>\n<p>Given that it can read and understand code, Reed wanted to see how well GenAI could be used with the code base for documentation. While a GenAI tool provides chat-oriented programming and can understand the code base, Reed says it lacks an understanding of localised knowledge, which led the team to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techtarget.com\/searchenterpriseai\/tip\/RAG-best-practices-for-enterprise-AI-teams\">retrieval augmented generation (RAG)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRAG is just the idea of supplementing whatever the large language model has with your own nuance, your own documentation, your own standards, and your own thought processes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>A paper published by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/from-local-to-global-a-graph-rag-approach-to-query-focused-summarization\/\">Microsoft on how to use GraphRAG<\/a>, which combines a graph database with retrieval augmentation generation, showed Bet365 a way to summarise its databases and the business logic coded in these databases.<\/p>\n<p>Reed says the technique effectively builds a knowledge graph of its databases. \u201cWe put in everything we could think of that would be useful to a developer,\u201d he adds, which allows developers to query the code and get back a meaningful response.<\/p>\n<p>Reed says the system provides additional information such as which database tables are used the most and which databases use the most processing power. \u201cWe wanted to understand logical reads, physical reads. We wanted to make it a very, very rich model.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Such information is key when ascertaining which parts of the IT infrastructure should be modernised to maximise value. Given that a database that has been around for several years will almost certainly be connected to numerous other databases that are also intertwined, working out what is going on is extremely difficult, which is why an AI tool that can read and understand what is going on inside a database is useful for Bet365.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe almost immediately realised it was a fabulous way of showing people the size and scale of the issue they had in front of them. It was a very good way of getting a message across,\u201d says Reed.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section data-menu-title=\"A careful path to tech innovation\">\n<h2><i data-icon=\"1\"><\/i>A careful path to tech innovation<\/h2>\n<p>Innovation may well be a dish that is best served cold. There are certain tech breakthroughs, like AI glasses, that grab public attention and can indeed offer a route to innovation, but truly innovating with AI requires careful consideration, as Reed has shown.<\/p>\n<p>It may not grab the headlines, but having an AI that not only understands code and databases, but also enables developers to ask technical questions of the code, shows the potential of AI to do much more than augment workflows and existing business processes.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"DigDeeperSplash\">\n<h4>\n\t\t\t<i data-icon=\"m\"><\/i>Read more on CW500 and IT leadership skills<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a id=\"DigDeeperItem-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/podcast\/AI-and-technical-debt-A-Computer-Weekly-Downtime-Upload-podcast\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/HeroImages\/workforce-AI-automation-izzuan-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/HeroImages\/workforce-AI-automation-izzuan-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg 960w,https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/HeroImages\/workforce-AI-automation-izzuan-adobe.jpg 1280w\" alt ><\/p>\n<h5>AI and technical debt: A Computer Weekly Downtime Upload podcast<\/h5>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/rms\/computerweekly\/Cliff-Saran-Sep-2022-140x180px.jpg\" alt=\"CliffSaran\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><span>By: <span>Cliff\u00a0Saran<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a id=\"DigDeeperItem-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/blog\/Cliff-Sarans-Enterprise-blog\/GenAI-Talk-to-me\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/digdeeper\/2.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/digdeeper\/2_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg 960w,https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/digdeeper\/2.jpg 1280w\" alt ><\/p>\n<h5>GenAI: Talk to me<\/h5>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/rms\/computerweekly\/Cliff-Saran-Sep-2022-140x180px.jpg\" alt=\"CliffSaran\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><span>By: <span>Cliff\u00a0Saran<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a id=\"DigDeeperItem-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/366616206\/Gambling-cloud-provider-bets-on-Nutanix-and-cools-on-VMware\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/German\/article\/data-tunnel-2-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/German\/article\/data-tunnel-2-adobe_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg 960w,https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/German\/article\/data-tunnel-2-adobe.jpg 1280w\" alt ><\/p>\n<h5>Gambling cloud provider bets on Nutanix and cools on VMware<\/h5>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/rms\/computerweekly\/adshead_antony2018.jpg\" alt=\"AntonyAdshead\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><span>By: <span>Antony\u00a0Adshead<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a id=\"DigDeeperItem-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252528527\/Top-10-Computer-Weekly-Downtime-Upload-podcasts-of-2022\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero Images\/Podcast-art-hero-JLD_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero%20Images\/Podcast-art-hero-JLD_searchsitetablet_520X173.jpg 960w,https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/visuals\/ComputerWeekly\/Hero%20Images\/Podcast-art-hero-JLD.jpg 1280w\" alt ><\/p>\n<h5>Top 10 Computer Weekly Downtime Upload podcasts of 2022<\/h5>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/rms\/computerweekly\/Brian-McKenna-profile-pic-2022-140x180px.jpg\" alt=\"BrianMcKenna\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><span>By: <span>Brian\u00a0McKenna<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/366626201\/Interview-Tech-innovation-at-Bet365\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><br \/>\n Becki Volkman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alan Reed, head of platform innovation at Bet365\u2019s Hillside Technology platform, discusses the role of generative AI in tech innovation By Cliff Saran, Managing Editor Published: 19 Jun 2025 15:00 Among the questions a head of technology may ponder are, what does it mean to be innovative, and perhaps, what technology can be used to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":857278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1822,22316,46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-857277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-innovation","8":"category-interview","9":"category-technology"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}