IBM and The All England Lawn Tennis Club Launch New Generative AI Feature for Personalised Player Stories at Wimbledon

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and The All England Lawn Tennis Club announced a new feature for the Wimbledon digital experience that will leverage match data with generative AI from IBM’s AI and data platform, watsonx, to keep fans updated on the world’s leading players as they advance through The Championships.

The new ‘Catch Me Up’ feature displays pre- and post-match player cards with AI-generated player stories and analysis via wimbledon.com and the Wimbledon 2024 App. Player cards will be personalised based on user preferences and data such as their location and myWimbledon profile, starting with their favourite players. Pre-match content will include analysis of recent performance and likelihood to win predictions, and post-match it will include key statistics and highlights. The feature will also create longer-form daily summaries of play.

‘Catch Me Up’ was built using IBM’s Granite large language model (LLM) to provide AI-generated text using the capabilities of the watsonx platform. The model has been trained on the Wimbledon editorial style and will be monitored by the All England Club. The new feature is designed to help Wimbledon scale its content to both new and existing tennis fans globally, as well as provide fans access to timelier, curated coverage across ladies’ and gentlemen’s singles matches which are often happening simultaneously.

This year, Wimbledon will also use generative AI to provide coverage of a broader range of matches than was previously available, including wheelchair events, to offer more to Wimbledon’s diverse international audience. This will form part of a redesigned digital match centre, known as IBM Slamtracker, available on the Wimbledon App and wimbledon.com. Using generative AI built from watsonx, IBM Slamtracker has been enhanced to provide bullet point-based match previews and post-match reviews for ladies’ and gentlemen’s singles matches.

 Majority of tennis fans surveyed positive about AI

The announcement comes as new research from IBM and Morning Consult* reveals that majority of UAE tennis fans surveyed think technology will have a very positive impact on multiple aspects of the sport – for fans, coaches and players alike

• 81% of tennis fans in the UAE surveyed think technology will have a positive impact on the advancement of fan engagement.
• More specifically, 88% of tennis fan respondents in the UAE think technology will have a positive impact on the advancement of training; game strategy (89%); coaching (87%); and talent identification & acquisitions (85%).

Additionally, the research also found that sports fans in UAE use at least two devices simultaneously to consume sport

• 25% of the UAE sports fans surveyed use two devices at the same time when watching sports, compared to the global average of 22%.
• Sports fans surveyed aged between 18-29 in the UAE use three or more devices at once when watching sports (10%), compared to a global average of 10%.
• In the UAE, respondents identified getting more game information while watching (52%) and interacting with fans (42%) as the top reasons for multi-device sport consumption. 38% also said they use multiple devices to multi-task.

Jonathan Adashek, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications for IBM, said: “The new Catch Me Up feature is an exciting example of how we can use the power of generative AI to deliver compelling, insight-driven storytelling at scale. For 35 years, IBM and Wimbledon have been co-creating solutions that make fans feel more connected to all the on-court action, and our new research confirms they are beginning to understand the positive impact technologies such as generative AI can have on their digital experiences. IBM is also putting these same technologies from our AI and data platform watsonx into the hands of clients worldwide, across nearly every sector, to address their unique business needs.”