It won’t be Al Michaels’ voice at the Olympics, but it’s “close”

During the upcoming Olympic Games, it might be more appropriate to refer to the famous sports reporter Al Michaels as AI Michaels (artificial intelligence). Football on Thursday evening The sports reporter, who previously worked on Olympic broadcasts for NBC and ABC, has agreed to allow NBC to use an artificial intelligence-generated version of his voice for daily highlight videos on its Peacock streaming platform. CNN sees this as a “milestone for the use of AI by a major media company.” “When I was approached about it, I was skeptical, but of course curious,” Michaels, 79, says in a press release. “Then I saw a demonstration detailing what they were planning to do. I said, ‘I’m in.'”

NBC said the AI-generated voice, based on Michaels’ previous NBC broadcast audio, will deliver daily 10-minute highlight packages of clips, athlete stories and more to Peacock subscribers based on their preferences. A large language model “analyzes subtitles and metadata to summarize clips from NBC’s Olympics coverage, then tailors those summaries to Michaels’ signature style” before passing the text on to an AI language model, per Vanity Fair. Editors will review all content for accuracy, otherwise artificial intelligence will make up the bulk of the packages. There are millions of different ways highlights can be curated based on a subscriber’s choices.

sMichaels was initially worried that the voice would not sound like himself or “would sound like a guy who only spouts cliches,” said Vanity Fair. When he heard a sample, “it was honestly amazing” and “a little scary,” he tells the outlet. “It wasn’t just close, it was almost 2% off the ideal.” The new role, which he’s paid for, “keeps me somewhat connected to the Olympics, which I’ve always loved,” he adds. The Summer Games in Paris, with 32 sports and over 300 medal events, are “the perfect place to use the technology,” says John Jelley, senior VP of product at Peacock Vanity Fair. In fact, “without it, it would be impossible to provide millions of fans with a personalized experience with a legendary sportscaster.” (More stories about artificial intelligence.)