They think it's all over: Traditional commentary to make way for AI at Wimbledon

Credit: PA

The oldest tennis tournament in the world will have a modern makeover this year, as the commentators will include Andrew Castle, John McEnroe and an AI bot.

The new technology will voice tennis commentary for all video highlights packages during Wimbledon 2023, as shown on the Wimbledon App and wimbledon.com. 

An AI voice will narrate key moments from the games, alongside captions which viewers can turn on and off.

In order to make it as close to the real life commentators as possible, the AI was trained in the language of tennis, and studied various sentence structures and vocabulary.

As well as Tennis player turned broadcaster Andrew Castle, AI will also commentate Wimbledon 2023. Credit: PA

The move by The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), which runs Wimbledon, in partnership with media company IBM, is a step towards making commentary available for the smaller matches outside of Wimbledon's Show Courts, which already have live human analysis.

The All England Club, Marketing & Commercial Director Usama Al-Qassab said he hopes the addition of AI will give fans, "even more insight into the singles draw and access commentary on a wider variety of matches through our match highlights videos."

Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications for IBM, Jonathan Adashek said: "We've seen first-hand how these technologies have the power to help major sporting events like Wimbledon to grow their audiences through outstanding digital experiences.

"The AI and data platform that IBM is using to create unique fan experiences for Wimbledon is the same technology that we're using to drive business transformation with clients across all sectors and industries."

But it's not the first time AI has been used to digitally clone athletes and sports stars.

An interview with the AI version of pro-golfer Jack Nicklaus, created by Soul Machines

Golfing champion Jack Nicklaus allowed his likeness to be used by company Soul Machines, to create AI-powered charicture of himself who could speak to people and answer their golfing questions in real time in a multiple languages.

Also in the world of golf, IBM, created AI commentary for the Masters this year for more than 20,000 video clips.In April, World Sports Network used AI to insert sports stars like Serena Williams, Cristiano Ronaldo and LeBron James into mocked up Wes Anderson style films.

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