The Olympic Games have an ancient history. Now, they will also have a dose of the latest technology.
This year, highlights from the Summer Olympics will be brought to you by AI — and more specifically, Al Michaels’ AI-generated storytelling.
Executives from NBCUniversal and streaming service Peacock said Wednesday that a customized, daily Olympics reel will be available to streaming subscribers. The reel will feature the voice of Mr. Michaels, the 79-year-old American broadcaster who first covered the Olympics decades ago.
Mr. Michaels, however, will not be hiding in a broadcast booth every night to recap the dozens of Olympic events that took place. Instead, the Peacock program has been trained by the NBC clips of Mr. Michaels — who joined the network in 2006 and was the longtime announcer of “Sunday Night Football” — to craft coherent, realistic propositions, which “will provide the signature of expertise and enunciation. ,” the company said.
Mr. Michaels gave permission for his voice to be used.
“When I was approached about this, I was skeptical but obviously curious,” Mr. Michaels said in a statement released by the company. “Then I saw a demo detailing what they had in mind. I said, ‘I’m in.'”
It raises a key question, one reminiscent of Mr. Michaels’ most famous Olympic appeal: Do NBCUniversal executives believe in miracles?
NBC has exclusively broadcast the Olympics in the United States since 1996, and the network has often come under intense public scrutiny for its coverage of the Games.
Handing over the keys to AI adds a new risk to the mix: the AI-generated Al Michaels is almost certain to draw interest given its novelty. And there’s been no shortage of stories of embarrassing bugs, face plants and mildly disturbing hallucinations as AI has exploded into widespread use over the past 18 months.
Subscribers who want the daily Peacock highlight reel will be able to select the Olympic events they’re most interested in and the types of highlights they want to see, such as viral clips, gold medal or elimination matches.
From there, Peacock’s AI engines will go to work each afternoon, curating the most notable moments and combining them into a neat custom package. The recreated voice of Mr. Michaels will be broadcast on the reels. (Humans will do quality control checks on the AI highlight reels.)
NBCUniversal officials said they expected seven million different variations of custom highlights across all games. Highlights will appear on the Peacock app for users who subscribe to it.
Brian Roberts, the chairman of Comcast, parent of NBCUniversal, premiered the new Al Michaels clip at an event to introduce AI-Al (officially called “Your Daily Olympic Recap on the Peacock”).
The germ of the idea, Mr. Roberts said, was born from a meeting months ago when executives from Comcast and NBCUniversal said, “What could we do with artificial intelligence? How can we harness artificial intelligence purely for fun and for good?”
After Mr. Roberts presented a demonstration, he added, “we pushed ourselves to invent and innovate and develop something better again and again.”
The Olympics come at a critical time for NBCUniversal. Peacock lost nearly $3 billion last year and lags far behind competitors like Netflix or Disney+ in terms of total subscribers. However, the streaming service has seen strong subscriber growth over the last year, and it’s counting on sports to help it get there. In January, Peacock showed the first stream-only National Football League playoff game.
The Olympics, which begin on July 26, offer him a completely different test. In addition to daytime and prime-time broadcasts on NBC and a number of cable networks, Peacock will play a prominent role in the company’s Olympic coverage and broadcast every Olympic event.
Kelly Campbell, president of Peacock, called the new AI tool a “breakthrough” in an interview and said that if it worked, it could soon populate the streaming platform in other ways — perhaps Andy Cohen AI recaps for Bravo shows , he said. .
“This version, for me, I want to do it for every sporting event and show we have at the Peacock,” he said. “This is something that really differentiates. We’re in a sea of sameness and having something that really sets you apart is really cool.”
