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Tom Hamilton, Senior Writer
Wimbledon will use AI-generated commentary for the first time at this year’s championship.
The All England Club will use the artificial intelligence commentary for video highlight packages on its website and app during this year’s tournament. Wimbledon is partnering with IBM’s watsonx, the company’s enterprise AI and data platform, to produce the highlights.
The technology will be used for matches where there isn’t human commentary and will produce captions for some videos. Wimbledon has used AI for its Power Index, but this is the first time it has turned to the technology for commentary.
“I see AI as very much complementing the human element, rather than replacing,” said Kevin Farrar, IBM’s head of sports partnerships. “You can’t replace John McEnroe doing commentary. That human element always needs to be there. It’s very much supplementing and complementing.”
Farrar said the technology could be used in the future to mimic tennis personalities and voices, with a view to one day potentially use the technology to commentate on live matches.
“For Wimbledon, it’s about providing commentary in the future on matches that don’t currently have human commentary — like the seniors, juniors, wheelchair [events],” Farrar said. “It’s not based on a specific person or an individual and their style. You can see in the future that you could train it in specific styles, languages, voices. So this is a step on that journey.”
Similar technology was used during this year’s Masters for narration of more than 20,000 video clips.