This year's Wimbledon tennis commentary will incorporate artificial intelligence (AI), an exciting breakthrough for tennis lovers. AI is expected to improve the tournament experience and engage spectators more deeply.
The AI commentary tool's creator, IBM, said that this cutting-edge component would be included in all video highlights packages during Wimbledon, according to CNN.
On the Wimbledon website and app, viewers watching the event will have access to audio commentary and subtitles of significant moments, which may be toggled on and off to suit personal preferences.
According to the press release, AI commentary aims to expand the reach of compelling analysis beyond Wimbledon's Show Courts, which currently benefit from live human commentary. To provide fans with a genuine and immersive experience, experts worked with Wimbledon organizers to educate the AI system in the specific language of tennis.
Wimbledon has expanded on its current use of AI technology to provide match analytics, highlight reels, and a leaderboard for the power index. This year, AI will provide draw analysis and television commentary, allowing for assessments of a player's chances of moving on to the singles draw final.
According to IBM, this new understanding will help tennis fans see possible shocks and irregularities in the singles draw that would not be noticeable based just on player rankings.
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How Will It Work?
Tracking information for the ball, players, and kinds of shots from numerous devices around the court are gathered to acquire the required data, per The Guardian. This data is analyzed by IBM's AI models on their platform and fed into a chatbot-like system that produces natural language commentary in tennis and Wimbledon's style. The discussion may also be converted into almost real-time audio commentary using a text-to-speech AI.
Although IBM has yet to make plans to provide AI commentary for whole matches, it views this breakthrough as a first step in that direction. This is consistent with the recent statement made by the European Broadcasting Union that Hannah England's voice clone would provide commentary for the European Athletics Championships.
Over the generations, we've witnessed iconic rivalries, triumphant feats and heroic defeats.
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But while the names may change, the drama remains.
New storylines await us, and #Wimbledon will once again be Always Like Never Before ✨
Changing The Landscape of Sports Coverage
While AI is intended to improve the watching experience, the move does not intend to remove the human touch from viewing tennis. IBM Sports Partnerships head Kevin Farrar praised tennis legend and pundit John McEnroe for his invaluable insights and lively banter.
He noted that, in tennis, AI is intended to help and supplement human commentary rather than take its place, as per a report from Essentially Sports. Though, Farrar said the technology might one day be used to commentate live events by imitating tennis personalities and voices.
This year's Masters employed similar technology to narrate more than 20,000 video segments, per ESPN.
Sports fans are excited about the first-ever dynamic blending of artificial intelligence with live tennis action at the famed Wimbledon event, which begins on July 3 and continues through July 16.
