NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock, is offering a new feature called “Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock” for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
This service allows users to select their preferred sports and types of highlights to receive a personalized daily recap read by an AI-generated version of legendary broadcaster Al Michaels. These recaps will last about 10 minutes and summarize the previous day’s Olympic events.
Al Michaels was initially hesitant about this AI project but changed his mind after seeing a demonstration of the technology. He expressed his curiosity and eventual support for the initiative despite his initial skepticism. The demonstration showcased the AI’s capability to mimic his voice convincingly, which won him over.
Engadget experienced a demo of the AI-generated recaps and reported that the artificial voice closely matches Michaels’ real voice, capturing his unique intonations and rhythms. NBCUniversal used extensive recordings of Michaels’ past broadcasts on NBC to train the AI.
Michaels, who is 79 years old, currently works with Amazon’s Thursday Night Football and holds an emeritus position at NBC Sports.
Peacock’s Olympic recaps will utilize content from up to 5,000 hours of live coverage and aim to provide nearly 7 million personalized variations of the recaps. The recaps will cover around 40 concurrent Olympic events daily.
NBCUniversal has assured that all AI-generated content will be reviewed by human editors before being sent out to users to prevent errors and ensure quality.
Users can start opting into the recaps on July 27, the day after the Opening Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, which begins on July 26. Interested viewers can sign up for these personalized recaps on Peacock’s Olympics website and through the Peacock mobile app, supporting various browsers like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge.
