Simon Lidzén, Fast Track: “We have a really cool canvas for some really exciting developments for 2025 and beyond”

Fast Track’s CEO spoke to Focus Gaming News about the company’s plans for 2025 and shared more details about their Rewards product.

Exclusive interview.- Focus Gaming News sat down with Simon Lidzén, Co-Founder & CEO of Fast Track, to discuss the company’s plans for the year ahead.

Simon also gave details about Rewards – the industry’s first AI-driven gamification solution designed to elevate player experiences – and how Fast Track is positioned in Brazil.

What are Fast Track’s priorities and plans for 2025?

It’s interesting because we’ve been pushing so hard over the last couple of years to really innovate and stay at the forefront of the CRM space and while writing my annual report to shareholders and the board, I realised more clearly than ever that this is just the beginning.

What we’ve built is something extraordinary, particularly with the capabilities of the Singularity Model we introduced a couple of years ago. At the time, we were ahead of the market – we had more platform capabilities than other systems could utilise. 

Now, we chose to focus on different areas and strategic things to prepare for the future. We integrated our platform with Greco, a gameplay risk management platform, to offer its Gameplay Risk Engine to our partners. With one-click integration, Fast Track’s clients can benefit from Greco without diverting valuable development or integration resources.

It utilises AI modelling to identify the value of players and throughout today it was used to tackle bonus abuse, but it has far greater potential. And we needed that as a solution for us to be able to have a self-learning AI-driven CRM system in the future.

We have just introduced Rewards, and it seems like everything is coming together. It’s like tying a rope – previously, something was missing to make it flow naturally. Rewards act as the final piece, allowing us to create highly engaging player experiences. It becomes very tangible, very clear. Operators can now clearly see how to use the Singularity Model in their daily operations. We can ensure that bonuses are not only given to the right players but are also the right amounts, ensuring investment where it truly matters.

Now we have a really cool canvas for some really exciting developments for 2025 and beyond.

“What we’ve built is something extraordinary, particularly with the capabilities of the Singularity Model we introduced a couple of years ago.”

Simon Lidzén, Co-Founder & CEO of Fast Track.

Can you share more about the Rewards gamification product and how it integrates real-time personalised player experiences?

When you’re building a platform you never really know if you’ve got it right, but I can tell you that when I’m demoing the product myself I get really excited to the extent that I actually find even playing the demo page as something fun. You’ve got Rewards and all the things that go on in Rewards is because everything is entrenched in the experience by progression and levels, shops and challenges, which is a very huge part of what we’re doing in the world. Everything is a foundation of real-time data, how we do real-time engagement, that’s what’s cool about the platform.

And, when we combine Rewards with the Singularity Model, we move beyond simple levelling systems to create fully personalised levels for each player. Take challenges, for instance: if you set up a challenge requiring players to log in daily for a week, our system already knows, based on their playing history, how hard you should push that player in order to get that person to engage in your brand.

Similarly, for wagering-based challenges, the system can calculate the exact amount a player should wager to qualify for a reward, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach. This personalised qualification makes the experience far more engaging and immersive.

In order to achieve this, we need a strong customer model and the ability to process real-time data effectively. It’s all about positioning the right incentives at the right time for each player.

“When we combine Rewards with the Singularity Model, we move beyond simple levelling systems to create fully personalised levels for each player.”

Simon Lidzén, Co-Founder & CEO of Fast Track.

What is Fast Track doing this year to ensure it stays ahead in such a competitive industry?

I think it is going to be a truly exciting year for us. As I mentioned before, I see this as just the beginning. We now have the platforms, tools, and infrastructure in place to properly scale with what the future of CRM is going to look like, with self-learning, and AI throughout the entire experience.

One of the most interesting internal developments is FTML (Fast Track Machine Learning), a project we started three years ago. It’s an internal platform used by our data science team, and what it does is remove logistical barriers to get AI models shipped out to our clients in the production environment.

Anyone who has worked in data science in the past knows how difficult it is to take a concept of a model or a model that you’ve built on a local computer and you can see evidence that it probably works, but then to get it out into production is a huge challenge because AI models need to be trained in the production environment. AI models must be trained in a live production environment using real operator data, which is extremely resource-intensive. So, with FTML, we can now deploy AI models 10 to 15 times faster than any other supplier in the industry.

This year, we’re also launching a brand-new churn model, which I believe is our 27th iteration. It’s incredibly advanced, it consists of 15 to 16 different churn models underneath it that work together to predict player behaviour with a high degree of accuracy. We’re going to have so many exciting AI-driven advancements this year.

How is Fast Track positioned in Brazil?

We’ve been tremendously fortunate in Brazil. It’s a fantastic market, and we’ve had the privilege of working with many operators there. Brazil is highly competitive, and having access to a real-time data platform like ours allows operators to scale efficiently using the Singularity model and automation. This gives them a strategic advantage when acquiring and retaining players.

We’ve formed strong partnerships in the region and are actively working to expand further. With the new licensing regulations coming in, there will be challenges, but we’re confident in our ability to adapt and navigate these changes successfully.