USTA Using IBM Watson AI to Engage Viewers in First Crowdless US Open
IBM is working with the U.S. Tennis Association on new artificial intelligence-based viewer experiences using its hybrid cloud technologies that are designed to engage fans during the U.S. Open Monday through Sept. 13 at the USTA Billie Jean King National…
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Tennis Center in Queens, New York. It's the first U.S. Open to be held without fans on-site. The IBM technologies, available on the U.S. Open app for Android and iOS devices, will enable fans to engage in debate and get player insights “in narrative form” about matchups during the Grand Slam tournament, said the company. Open Questions with Watson Discovery uses natural language processing to gather relevant information for fans before each match, IBM said. The company also tapped its AI Highlights technology to recreate crowd sounds gleaned from hundreds of hours of video footage captured during last years' tournament. In past years, AI Highlights used Watson to analyze video footage and rank the excitement level of each clip to compile a highlight reel in near-real time and classify specific crowd reactions, including crowd roar, to give each clip a crowd reaction score. The insight will be used this year to dynamically serve sounds based on similar play from last year, IBM said. Its AI Sounds tools will be available to the production teams in the stadium and at ESPN. A hybrid IBM cloud architecture will enable remote operations to function seamlessly: USTA statisticians who would normally be courtside, providing stats for each point live, will now be offsite watching each match on low-latency feeds, delivering game stats "as if they were onsite."