Previously, we scanned for patterns of activity; AI allows us to search much faster and for smaller patterns which may be focused in a particular location,” Pearson states. “We are also able to apply smart enforcement with AI. If AI detects an infringement, perhaps by identifying a watermark, then the model now has enough intelligence to disrupt that pirate by instigating effective countermeasures.” In July – with the 2024-25 football season still a month away – Nagra was already detecting piracy. “We are detecting as much, if not more, piracy during this summer of sport,” explains Pearson. “There is a massive amount of content ripe for picking, but AI is incredibly powerful for use in analytics, discovery, quantification and remediation.” COMMENTARY CATALYSED Using AI, sports teams can connect with their fanbases in a far more effective fashion. Platforms like Veritone Voice synthetic voice
AI technology facilitate real-time commentary and descriptions in various languages. A partnership between Veritone and Stats Perform’s Opta sports data offers not only lifelike voice options in a wide range of languages, but also voices like that of former pro footballer turned pundit Alan Smith. Smith had his voice fed into Opta Voice and can now virtually commentate on football games in multiple languages. Similar solutions are provided by Elevenlabs, which is able to translate audio clips or the sound of videos into 29 languages to efficiently scale the localisation of content. However, in the rush to expand reach, rightsholders are wary about introducing AI too soon, especially if the audience is not ready. Wimbledon shelved the use of AI commentary for this year’s championships following criticism of the emotionless feature in 2023. The model was trained to read tennis matches and was only used for highlight commentary on
Wimbledon’s website for matches on the outside courts, where live human commentary was not in place. It was criticised by broadcaster Annabel Croft and others for being robotic. The AI-powered audio provided by Wimbledon’s data partner IBM will continue to be used at the US Open, as well as golf’s Masters tournament, but may only reappear at the All England Club if the tech sees improvement. That said, Wimbledon and IBM continued to employ AI to deliver a new mobile app intended to boost editorial coverage on the website. Catch Me Up was built using IBM’s Granite LLM to provide AI-generated text, subsequently being trained to mimic the Wimbledon editorial style. The Club also used generative AI to serve coverage of a broader range of matches than ever before, including wheelchair events. MONETISING THE ARCHIVE Advances in AI-powered digital asset management provide
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