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- Wimbledon will be introducing two new AI features at this year's tournament.
- It is being done in partnership with IBM.
- For more stories, visit the Tech and Trends homepage.
Wimbledon and IBM are launching two new artificial intelligence (AI) features for this year's tournament, to enhance the fan experience.
The prestigious grass-court grand slam is set for 3 July and will run until 16 July.
Novak Djokovic and Iga Swiatek come off wins at Roland Garros and are currently ranked second and first respectively in the world rankings.
While it remains to be seen who will triumph, Wimbledon and IBM have announced some additions to the fan experience for this year's tournament.
"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," said Usama Al-Qassab, the marketing and commercial director at the All-England Club.
The first of these features is an AI commentary feature, which will produce tennis commentary for all video highlight packages during Wimbledon.
The feature uses generative AI technology to provide audio commentary of key moments, along with captions, which can be toggled on or off.
This will enable commentary coverage for matches held off of Wimbledon's show courts, which traditionally are not covered by commentators.
In order to enable the AI-generated audio commentary service, IBM worked with the All England Tennis Club to train their watsonx AI and data platform in the unique language of tennis.
IBM will also be introducing an AI draw analysis, which defines how favourable the path to the final may be for each player in the singles draw.
It is hoped this tool will provide fans with an indication of the chances a player has of making it through the round, beyond looking solely at their current world ranking.
It is hoped that this will stimulate debate and engagement in the fan community.
