What NELLY Is and Why DraftKings Built an Internal AI Tool
When team members at DraftKings have an important question about their job, whether technical or nontechnical, they often turn to their new favorite work partner, NELLY.
NELLY is a custom ChatGPT analytics efficiency tool that several analytics team members created during a 2025 hackathon in an effort to help teammates tackle their day-to-day work more efficiently. The tool consolidates vast amounts of information and assists with various everyday tasks, serving as a go-to internal resource for knowledge and support.
Lead Analyst Matt Olson was one of the individuals who helped create NELLY, which he said has made it easier for everyone on his team to excel in their roles.
“In our case with NELLY, it has allowed us to centralize all our best knowledge and make it super accessible for everyone in a really helpful and low-friction format,” he said. “This means better and more informed decisions all around, no more information silos, and everyone can find the context and guidance they need.”
NELLY has become a game-changer for many teammates, including one of its creators, Manager of Risk Analytics Shreya Thakur.
“Honestly, it’s been one of the biggest boosts to my workflow — both in how fast I can work and the overall quality of the final deliverable,” she said.
The creation of NELLY is just one example among many that define DraftKings’ AI transformation, one that will enable the company to continue to transform its industry while empowering its people to do even more impactful work.
How NELLY Supports Onboarding, SQL Work and Cross-Functional Collaboration
Since its internal launch in April 2025, NELLY has been widely adopted across the company, amassing hundreds of employees and more than 4,000 conversations.
According to Claire Van Note, a Senior Data Analyst on the company’s risk analytics team, employees leverage the tool to accomplish a wide range of tasks. This includes answering onboarding questions based on internal resources and best practices, which enables new hires to learn more about internal programs, define team-specific terms, and understand ramp-up expectations.
“This is helping to get new hires onboarded faster and with a smaller time commitment from tenured team members,” Van Note said.
NELLY played a critical role in the hiring of DraftKings’ summer 2025 new hire and intern class ensuring they had the information needed to succeed all in one central location.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to hear newer team members mention how much NELLY has been their go-to for all things DraftKings,” Olson said.
Van Note shared that NELLY has also made it easier for analysts to collaborate with stakeholders by enabling non-technical partners to write and run SQL queries based on their individual use cases. Once stakeholders identify an idea backed by company data, they can then go to the Analytics team for additional testing and implementation.
“This has largely accelerated our risk management innovation over the last six months or so, and we’re excited to see how it continues to expand,” Van Note said.
“This has largely accelerated our risk management innovation over the last six months or so, and we’re excited to see how it continues to expand.”
For Thakur, one of NELLY’s biggest benefits is its presentation mode, which provides team members with templates, guidance and context for building clear, cohesive and polished slide decks. Not only does the tool reduce the time spent brainstorming layouts and cleaning up slides, but it also helps tighten the narrative.
NELLY has even enhanced the code-writing and review process, enabling team members to test more hypotheses, explore new ideas and validate assumptions with greater speed and accuracy.
“We’re still in the early stages of what's possible in this area, but we’re really excited about what we’re building here, and there are many really smart people driving this forward at DraftKings,” Olson said.
The Skills That Matter Most When Working With AI At DraftKings
- Perseverence: “Building and using AI tools can be frustrating at first, but it gets easier as you persevere,” Van Note said.
- Curiosity: “Staying curious, experimenting and being comfortable iterating on your work is key,” Thakur said. “What you mastered last month might look completely different today, and that’s part of the fun.”
- Diligence: “With AI, it’s really important to trust but verify,” Olson said.
How DraftKings Is Expanding AI at Work: From Presentation Mode to Agentic NELLY
AI isn’t just shaping DraftKings’ potential; it’s empowering its people to evolve, too.
Thakur said she has experienced this firsthand, acknowledging how much easier it has become for her to learn and develop new analytical skills, thanks to AI.
“AI has really accelerated my ability to pick up new frameworks or understand complex concepts,” Thakur said. “It feels like I have a mentor at my side ready to walk me through tricky logic, help structure my approach, or even sanity-check my thinking in seconds.”
She also believes that AI has made team members more experimental and creative, empowering them to explore new approaches, brainstorm innovative ideas and take informed risks. Thakur is eager to see how her team will harness the power of AI next.
“Looking ahead, I’m excited about how AI could enhance our data reporting tools and make the reporting experience more interactive and efficient,” she said. “There’s a lot of potential for AI to make exploring and presenting data not just easier but more engaging overall.”
“There’s a lot of potential for AI to make exploring and presenting data not just easier but more engaging overall.”
Van Note shared that she’s looking forward to building more AI agents to execute tasks. During the company’s most recent hackathon, she and her peers built a prototype for agentic NELLY that’s capable of executing analytical actions end-to-end for both analysts and cross-functional partners. The solution can write slides based on user-provided notes and context or generate a data visualization chart in response to a user question, she said.
According to Olson, the technology’s full potential is yet to be unlocked — and there’s nothing more exciting than that.
“AI is already powerful, and we see enormous value in it as a force multiplier. As we continue to expand and deepen AI connections across our enterprise systems, we’re unlocking a new level of impact—where intelligence is embedded directly into how the business operates. That’s what enables the next wave of value.”
Frequently Asked Questions
What is NELLY at DraftKings?
NELLY is a custom ChatGPT-powered analytics efficiency tool created by members of DraftKings’ analytics team during a 2025 hackathon. It centralizes the company’s best internal knowledge in a low-friction format, supports everyday technical and nontechnical tasks and serves as a go-to internal resource for onboarding, SQL queries, slide creation, code review and risk analytics innovation.
How does NELLY help with new-hire onboarding?
NELLY answers onboarding questions using internal resources and best practices, helping new hires learn about internal programs, define team-specific terms and understand ramp-up expectations. By consolidating information in one place, it enables faster onboarding with less time required from tenured team members and played a key role in supporting the summer 2025 new hire and intern class.
What makes NELLY different from standard AI chat tools?
NELLY is built specifically around DraftKings’ internal knowledge and workflows, centralizing company context to eliminate information silos and improve decision-making. It also includes specialized capabilities such as presentation mode with templates and narrative guidance, SQL query support for nontechnical stakeholders and emerging agentic functionality that can execute analytical tasks end-to-end, including generating slides and data visualizations.
