Wimbledon Tennis Tournament to Introduce AI-Generated Commentary

The Wimbledon logo is pictured in a water fountain on the first day of the 2021 Wimbledon Championships at the The All England Tennis Club in London, England, on June 28, 2021. (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)

Tennis fans tuning into the next Wimbledon tennis tournament in July can also tune into AI-generated commentary.

IBM is working with the All England Club to launch the new feature that will be accessible via the Wimbledon app and website, while fans can still choose to listen to regular commentary from the BBC.

The feature is powered by IBM’s Watsonx AI platform, has been trained in the “unique language of tennis,” and is slated to provide narration that is “informative and engaging.”

In just under a few seconds, the system tracks and collects data from around the court and of the players; it is then fed into the AI platform before a chatbot produces the commentary that can be relayed as text or audio to the viewer.

“We are constantly innovating with our partners at IBM to provide Wimbledon fans, wherever they are in the world, with an insightful and engaging digital experience of The Championships,” said Usama Al-Qassab, marketing director at The All England Club, in a statement.

“This year, we’re introducing new features for our digital platforms that use the latest AI technology from IBM to help fans gain even more insight into the singles draw and access commentary on a wider variety of matches through our match highlights videos.”

IBM’s senior VIP of marketing, Jonathan Adashek, said AI has helped grow audiences for major sporting events.

“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,” he said.

AI’s Wider Role in Society

The move comes as political and business leaders grapple with the impact of AI on a range of areas.

Just days earlier, executives at German tabloid newspaper giant Bild took the significant step of announcing that AI would begin replacing key editorial roles amid a broader push to go “digital only.”

The company told staff in an email that it would “part ways with colleagues whose jobs will be replaced by AI and/or automated processes in the digital world, or who do not find themselves in this new line-up with their current skills,” which was obtained by German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine.

“Roles such as editors, print production journalists, proofreaders, photo editors, and assistants will no longer exist like they do today.”

In March, CEO and publisher Mathias Döpfner issued a stark warning to staff on the impact of AI.

“Artificial intelligence has the potential to make independent journalism better than it ever was—or simply replace it,” he said in an internal letter to employees.

“Understanding this change is essential to a publishing house’s future viability,” Döpfner added. “Only those who create the best original content will survive.”

In the United States, publishers have been a bit more conservative with the deployment of AI.

U.S. publishing giant Gannett said they would include AI in story production but only with human oversight.

“The desire to go fast was a mistake for some of the other news services,” said Renn Turiano, senior vice president and head of product at Gannett, in comments obtained by Reuters.

“We’re not making that mistake.”

Meanwhile, media mogul Barry Diller, who co-founded the Fox Broadcasting Company, was blunt in his views of AI.

“Unless publishers say, ‘You cannot do that until there is a structure in place for publishers to get paid.’ You will see another wave even more destructive,” he told the Sir Harry Evans Global Summit on Investigative Journalism.

Diller compared the impact of AI to that of online news on the traditional media industry, saying there was “enormous destruction” of newsrooms.