How the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency streamlined deep work across 8+ teams with Perplexity Enterprise
8+
teams using Perplexity Enterprise
93%
adoption rate among the pilot group
150+
hours saved across users
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is the national anti-doping organization in the United States for Olympic, Paralympic, Pan American, and Parapan American sports. The organization oversees in-competition and out-of-competition drug testing, results management processes, drug reference resources, and athlete education. Through scientific research, education, and outreach, USADA champions athletes’ rights to clean sport and fair competition.
The Problem
Boosting agency capabilities while maintaining high security standards
A couple years ago, John Bobo, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s Chief Operating and Innovation Officer, began updating the organization’s legacy systems. He sensed AI tech like ChatGPT was at a “notable technological inflection point” and could make USADA more efficient. But he also knew that before deploying an AI platform across the organization, he needed to overcome the uncertainties surrounding AI.
“At the time, many news articles were focused on hallucinations and incorrect or misleading results. I wanted to empower people with AI to master the mundane and get more time in their day to focus on the larger mission.”
So, he decided to run a pilot program to discover potential AI use cases for USADA and build the team’s confidence in the technology. However, for this pilot program, he needed a partner that met four non-negotiable requirements:
Accuracy — With a lean team working daily for integrity in sports, USADA can’t use a platform that experiences hallucinations. Any errors introduced by an AI tool would damage their organization’s credibility to advocate for clean athletes. “We needed a platform with clear citations and links to source material, so we could verify results.”
Productivity — USADA conducts daily operations in finance, education, legal, coms, operations, international, HR and IT. Busyness of daily tasks takes away valuable time that can be used to progress the nonprofit’s mission. Without compromising its rigorous standards, USADA needed AI to free up some extra “brain space,” allowing the team to focus on problem-solving and innovation.
Security — USADA implemented its first Ai Policy that no athlete data is ever allowed to be used on an AI platform. “Thanks to AI, you can easily create synthetic data, so no personal information of a real person is required.” To ensure greater confidentiality, John also needed an AI tool that wouldn't train its models with USADA’s data — a common practice for LLMs.
Flexibility — To address all their different use cases, John wanted USADA to try multiple LLMs. But, with so many new models and AI platforms cropping up, he didn’t have the time to vet them all. What he needed was a platform that helped everyone learn about AI and different LLMs as fast as possible.
Luckily, Perplexity Enterprise met all USADA’s needs.
The Solution
Underwriting USADA’s mission to protect the rights of clean athletes and provide an even-playing field for sport
With Perplexity Enterprise in its toolkit, USADA has a powerful fact-checker and knowledge-finder to supercharge its mission. John explains, “We’re in the sports integrity business. If we find doping in a sport, we’ve got to make the hard call, so it’s critical that we’ve dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s.”
To ensure an ideal fit, USADA piloted the solution with 30 employees with a host of specialties from finance, education, legal, coms, operations, international, HR and IT. The test group quickly discovered several benefits:
Use Case #1: Real-time policy research
The education department quickly found research on adult learning principles along with updates and current events in less than 30 seconds. Even better, the information is trustworthy, with citations for all search results.
Use Case #2: Quick summaries and analysis
USADA’s staff uses Perplexity Enterprise to analyze large datasets, translate documents, refine video transcripts, and extract key takeaways from complex articles without using USADA’s data to train the LLM. Likewise, the tech department uses AI to instantly transform complex instructions for training non-technical workers — a task that used to take hours.
Use Case #3: Deep learning
Perplexity Enterprise’s concise, readable, and detailed search results help USADA employees quickly get answers to their questions—like advice on how to create better organizational systems overviews. The AI even prompts team members with follow-up questions, encouraging them to dig deeper into each topic’s nuances.
Use Case #4: Efficient upskilling
John says an employee in the legal department used the AI platform to create a 40-question practice test for the notary public exam, which she passed on the first try. USADA’s Tech Team even boosted their coding skills by asking different language models for solutions. With it, they were able to get the answers needed to complete code without looping in a developer.
These benefits add up, says John. Rather than squandering time on basic tasks, Perplexity Enterprise helps USADA solve administrative problems and diagnose systemic issues. According to John, this “mastery of the mundane” unblocks employees, so they can spend more time on the knowledge work that advances USADA’s cause.
“In a world of information overload, Perplexity’s Focus functionality is invaluable,” John says. “And our teams have embraced all the advantages that Perplexity brings.”
The Result
Enhanced problem-solving for time savings during the Paris Olympics
These days, John conducts 80% of all his online searches in Perplexity Enterprise, totaling more than 10 net new searches daily. The eight USADA teams that piloted the solution — including the finance, education, legal, coms, operations, international, HR and IT — report similar results.
Following the pilot program’s 93% adoption rate, John plans to replicate that success across the organization’s extended team members. “The ease of parsing through information just makes you hungry for more,” John says, “and it supplies infinite possibilities for the future with a double-digit percentage increase in problem-solving potential.”
From the power users in the tech department using AI to accelerate complex solutions to a manager using it to make travel plans and create meeting agendas, Perplexity Enterprise is a valuable asset for problem-solving across USADA.
“I can't tell you the number of times people are trying to solve a problem, and I ask, Have you tried Perplexity?'" Once they do, John says they find an idea, tool or path to a solution. “And often, they find the solution immediately.”
