by Taylor Soper on Nov 1, 2025 at 10:28 am

Seattle Reign FC head coach Laura Harvey. (Reign FC Photo)

Generative AI has made its way onto the professional soccer field.

Laura Harvey, head coach of Seattle Reign FC, said this week that ChatGPT helped her come up with a new defensive strategy.

Speaking on the Soccerish Podcast, Harvey said she was curious if ChatGPT could answer questions about soccer. So she started prompting OpenAI’s chatbot with questions about her team.

At first, she asked broad questions like, “what is Seattle Reign’s identity?” She didn’t really love the answer.

But then she asked: “What formation should you play to beat NWSL teams?”

It then listed every team in the women’s soccer professional league, with a suggested formation. And for two of the teams, it suggested “back-five,” a defensive setup using five players in the backline.

Harvey said she wasn’t super familiar with the strategy and had not used it as a coach.

She took the AI suggestion to her staff and did a deep dive on the potential change.

“We liked it,” Harvey said. “And it worked — we won the game.”

Harvey, a three-time NWSL Coach of the Year, didn’t reveal the opponent but said they were “really good.” Now the team uses the formation as an option during matches. The Reign have improved since last season and are ranked fourth in the NWSL heading into the playoffs.

It’s a fascinating example of using AI as a tactical consultant, combining human expertise and intuition with machine suggestions.

“It didn’t tell you how to play it, what to do in it or any of that stuff,” Harvey said on the podcast. “But it was like, ‘This is what we would say to do.’ And I was like, ‘Hmm, interesting.’ And that was what spurred me to look into it. So then I really looked into it.”

Across industries, professionals are treating tools such as ChatGPT as sounding boards — running ideas by them, exploring scenarios, or pressure-testing strategies before making decisions.

OpenAI’s own research this year found that people increasingly rely on ChatGPT “as an advisor rather than only for task completion.”

“ChatGPT likely improves worker output by providing decision support, which is especially important in knowledge-intensive jobs where productivity is increasing in the quality of decision-making,” according to the research.

Message from the Underwriter

University of Washington scientists and students are using AI to create real medicines.

Better treatments for cancer, autoimmune diseases, viruses and more are now on the horizon thanks to groundbreaking work with artificial intelligence from a team of scientists at the University of Washington’s Institute for Protein Design. Led by Nobel Prize winner David Baker, this team of Huskies uses AI tools to create proteins — biology’s building blocks — that lay the foundation for new medicines. Together, this international group of students, faculty and researchers acts as a “communal brain,” with each Husky contributing ideas and expertise from their fields. The institute’s recent breakthroughs — including an antivenom for snakebites, and antibiotics that combat drug-resistant bacteria — show how this innovative science can save and change lives.

Read more.

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Taylor Soper is GeekWire's editor, responsible for coordinating the newsroom, planning coverage, and editing stories. A native of Portland, Ore., and graduate of the University of Washington, he was previously a GeekWire staff reporter, covering beats including startups and sports technology. Follow him on LinkedIn or email taylor@geekwire.com.