What tablet does the NFL use?

Technology has come a long way since the founding of the National Football League (NFL) in 1920, and since then it has embraced things like television, tablets, and (most recently) AI to expand football’s reach, fan engagement, and player safety. You’ve probably noticed coaches, players and staff looking at tablets on the sidelines during games as they plan and prepare for the next game. These are Microsoft Surface tablets configured and provided to teams since 2014 as part of an ongoing partnership between the NFL and the tech giant.

In the past, players and coaches used printed black-and-white photos quickly assembled into binders to review games, a tedious and inefficient process that continued until 2013. In contrast, Surface tablets can quickly deliver high-quality images while allowing coaches to send annotations and notes in real time between those in the coach’s booth and those on the sidelines.

Providing tablets to the entire league ensures that all teams are on equal footing, technologically. Devices are distributed before each match, collected afterwards and locked when not in use. They cannot be used to surf the Internet or download applications that could give a team an advantage. The NFL’s technology approach has been cautious but evolving and recently underwent a major upgrade.

Heading into the 2025 season, Microsoft has provided the NFL with 2,500 Surface Copilot+ PCs customized to withstand harsh gaming conditions in terms of temperature, glare and drop resistance. More important than the rugged design and improved specifications are the tablet’s AI capabilities and features that change the way coaches and players view matches and sort information.

Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant can easily locate clips using filters and help people in the cabin analyze data from Excel spreadsheets to get important insights. Tablets also play a key role in player safety. Not only do they allow coaches to easily access players’ medical information, but they also contain a concussion assessment app that can help determine if a player has a head injury. AI is also good at detecting dangerous plays, giving the league the information needed to make changes or improve equipment. However, there’s one key thing NFL teams can’t use their Surface tablets’ AI for: calling plays. As Thomas Labuzienski, head of partnerships at Microsoft, told GeekWire: “We don’t use AI and technology to make decisions for (coaches, players and staff). They’re experts. They know what they’re trying to do.”

Outside of games, the NFL uses Copilot and other Microsoft 365 features to automate and streamline tedious tasks like sorting data, spotting trends and generating reports. It is also simplified data entry, especially for logging incidents such as technology malfunctions or equipment problems. NFL scouts and coaches have also used Microsoft’s AI programs to gather information on potential team-shaping players.

Although the integration of Microsoft Copilot does not appear to have negatively impacted the 2025-26 NFL season, the same cannot be said for tablets and AI in other leagues. Major League Baseball (MLB) – in partnership with Apple since 2016 – banned the use of AI to make strategic decisions during games after discovering that teams were using iPads to access programs that determined things like ideal pitches and substitutions.

Former relief pitcher Adam Ottavino claimed that the New York Mets (a team he played for between 2022 and 2024) were the main reason for the crackdown, although a report from The Athletic indicated that as much as a third of the league was using similar AI tools. Despite the ban, MLB found that all teams complied with league policies. In contrast, sports leagues have begun to wholeheartedly embrace the use of AI to facilitate game officiating. During an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show,” National Basketball Association (NBA) commissioner Adam Silver predicted that his league would eventually use AI to automate clear calls, such as if a ball went out of bounds, leaving more complicated questions to human referees.

MLB introduced a similar program for the 2026 season called the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System. When a player challenges a strike zone judgment, the technology makes a final decision, which also makes challenges a strategic risk. These are just a few of the ways that artificial intelligence has reshaped the way sports are played and consumed, and this is clearly just the beginning.