Artificial intelligence is making its presence felt at the Paris Games, primarily in a supporting capacity. While it's tempting to label this as "The first AI Olympics," viewing it as the last Games where AI remains in a secondary role might be more accurate.
Several Olympic partners are showcasing new AI initiatives during the Games, from chatbots for athletes to machine learning-generated performance recommendations and tools to help athletes sleep better in the Olympic Village. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has outlined a broad Olympic AI Agenda, specifying principles but not detailed applications for AI technology.
AI's potential in sports is vast, offering teams and athletes insights into performance and training adjustments. Many professional and amateur sports already use AI, particularly machine learning, to sort and categorize footage and identify areas for improvement. However, AI is expensive, raising concerns that its adoption might widen the gap between wealthy nations that dominate the medal count and other countries.
Many companies sponsoring the Games are eager to demonstrate their leadership in AI. Intel, the official AI partner, is using AI to power a chatbot for athletes and to help broadcasters edit footage for fans of specific countries, sports, or athletes. Intel has also launched a pilot program in Senegal, using AI to identify potential athletes, scanning over 1,000 children and identifying 40 with significant talent. In Paris, a scaled-down version of this system will allow fans at the Stade de France to mimic Olympic events, with AI evaluating their form and talent.
The official timekeeper, Omega, uses AI to track swimmers' movements, analyzing acceleration, deceleration, number of strokes, and time in the water. In tennis, computer vision helps understand athletes' reaction times to serves and how it correlates with their returns. NBC uses AI to create a digital version of Al Michaels, delivering personalized highlights in daily recaps to fans. However, Warner Bros. Discovery, which holds broadcast rights in Europe, has decided not to use AI for the Paris Games, indicating that they have yet to determine how AI can enhance live sports storytelling.
Airweave, the Japanese company behind the modular plastic mattresses in the Olympic Village, is offering AI body scans to help athletes determine the ideal mattress firmness. Despite the high-tech scans, the beds have received mixed reviews from athletes.
Only some see AI as the solution to all Olympic challenges. Getty Images, which produces millions of photos during the Games, is still exploring how to incorporate AI into its editorial operations. Michael Heiman, Getty's VP of global sport, mentioned that while facial recognition technology could help identify athletes in photos, it’s not yet ready to handle the thousands of less well-known athletes at the Olympics.