Eurovision Sport introduces multilingual AI commentary for its European Athletics U18 Championships coverage

Eurovision Sport introduces multilingual AI commentary for live coverage

Image: European Athletics

Eurovision Sport has included multilingual AI-generated commentary at the European Athletics U18 Championships in Rieti, Italy (16–19 July). This initiative has been developed in partnership with European Athletics and technology partner CAMB.AI, as the EBU has claimed in a statemet.

Through the EBU’s free streaming platform, Eurovision Sport will offer AI-generated translated commentary from its French-language remote commentary feed. All content will be labelled as AI-generated.

Commentary will be available in Dutch, German, Hindi, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Serbian and Spanish. Italian commentary will not be offered for the Rieti event, as domestic coverage will be provided by EBU Member and host broadcaster RAI.

Alan Fagan, Managing Director, Eurovision Sport explains: “This initiative marks another milestone in Eurovision Sport’s commitment to making sport more accessible through innovation”.

“As one of the world’s most followed Olympic sports, athletics has the power to unite audiences across borders, making multilingual coverage an increasingly important part of the fan experience”, he continues. “Following encouraging results from earlier trials, we’re excited to continue expanding this innovation, together with our partners European Athletics and CAMB.AI”.

Marcel Wakim, Communications, Television & Digital Director, European Athletics said: “We are using the European Athletics U18 Championships to show an extra level of commitment to our fans all over Europe.

“The technology is expected to be used again during selected field event finals at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham this August, subject to final operational approval”.

“This initiative builds on Eurovision Sport’s ongoing work with European Athletics and CAMB.AI to explore how artificial intelligence can enhance live sports coverage. Previous collaborations have included AI-powered audio versions of live blogs, voice-cloned editorial content, and live translated commentary at international athletics events”, concludes Wakim.