Eurovision Sport is expanding its coverage of European Athletics by bringing in artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
In partnership with European Athletics, Eurovision will use the cloned voice of former World silver medallist and European Athletics commentator Hannah England. The AI will replicate content from European Athletics’ live blog for this year’s European Athletics Team Championships in Silesia from 20-25 June.
The audio version of the blog, voiced by ‘Hannah’ will be heard as part of the 24-hour live audio stream on the European Athletics YouTube Channel.
Eurovision Sport says the project gives the opportunity to explore how text-to-speech and voice-cloning technologies can allow European Athletics to exploit its rich content, data, and journalism across multiple platforms.
Head of Summer Sport at Eurovision Sport Andreas Aristodemou said: “Everyone is excited about the possibilities offered by AI in extending access to our content. We believe that well-tailored AI strategies can help both public service broadcasters and our partner sports federations connect with wider audiences and will be looking closely at the results of this experiment.”
Eurovision Sport and European Athletics will test the latest AI technology and demonstrate how it can be used effectively within a supervised framework to give people more choice in how they follow their favourite sport.
“I am excited to work with European Athletics and the EBU to explore using AI to bring even more content to our fans, speaking with one voice,” said Hannah. “We are always looking for innovation in athletics and I believe this use of my cloned voice can enhance the fan experience by giving them another incentive to follow our sport.”
European Athletics and Eurovision Sport have worked together for over 40 years.
