Artificial Intelligence is transforming human lives every day. It would be difficult to state what part of our modern society that AI hasn’t touched yet. It has proven how important it is to our daily lives, business operations and society. Artificially Intelligent machines are influencing every aspect of our lives and help us improve efficiencies and enhance our human capabilities. AI is so entwined with everything we do; it’s hard to imagine a life without it.
Artificial Intelligence has been applied to almost all areas and it is now revolutionizing sports and is elevating it to a whole new level. AI is significantly impacting the way games are strategized, played and engaging the audience.
We have listed a few advancements in sports that are impacting the industry rapidly.
- Player Performance and Potential
AI can be used to enhance the performance of the players. Players’ techniques can be improved the combination of AI and sensor technology. For instance, consider weight training, which is now virtually universal across sports, AI has the capability to provide real-time feedback to the players and maximize their results of a workout by creating personalized training regimens that busy coaches fail to provide.
Another invention of AI is wearables. Wearables can provide data about the levels of strains and exertion a player experiences and can signal that an activity should be stopped to prevent injuries.
- AI Augmented Coaching
AI has a major impact on strategic decisions made by the coach, both before and during a game. A basic example of this is cricket. Through a combination of wearable sensors and high-speed cameras, AI platforms can measure the speed, spin, LBW in cricket, and placement of tennis serve, a curveball, forward pass, and a penalty kick in football and a dozens of similar actions, not to mention the motions and positioning in space of the player who perform the action. All these data helps the coach to prepare players better for the competition. It is equally important that AI can predict the chances of success for various game tactics. For example, few football coaches are turning to AI to assist them to call the right plays during a game.
- Enriching the Experience
Presently, AI can deliver advanced performance analytics, whether it is finding clips of all the winning tactics or visual analysis of each and every play. This eventually gives the players and coaches a powerful tool to analyze how they performed and an opportunity to explore their opponent’s weaknesses and strengths. For example, in the Roland-Garros tennis tournament, Infosys had partnered with Stats+ which re-ordered the statistics in a live match based on their influence on the outcome of the game. This point-by-point, dynamic, and live feature is based on the principles of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to enrich a fan and player experience.
- Automating the Media
The cameras can capture sporting events with the help of AI platforms, and pick out the highlights of a game and distribute it to television outlets or mobile devices. AI-based capabilities are now extended to print as well. A natural language platform has been developed that transforms raw data from minor league games into readable stories.
Final Note
Keeping this wide range of AI uses in sports, we can say AI is here to stay and is disrupting the future of sports by making significant advances in the industry. And as technology improves through better sensors, processors and algorithms, it will become even more important. Through an internal IT organization or via external AI platforms, sports organizations now need AI to successfully compete at a higher level.