2026 Winter Olympics to feature AI broadcast innovations

The 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics will feature a suite of AI-driven broadcast innovations, organizers said at an online media roundtable on Wednesday.

Yiannis Exarchos, CEO of Olympic Broadcasting Services and executive director of Olympic Channel Services, introduced the technological innovations.

A key on-screen innovation developed with Alibaba will be AI-supported real-time 360-degree replays. This system, introduced at the 2024 Paris Olympics, combines multi-camera feeds with stroboscopic analysis to generate detailed multi-angle views, freeze frames and slow-motion sequences within seconds.

Another Winter Olympics debut will be an AI-driven stone-tracking system for curling. It will visualize each stone's path, speed and rotation in real time, using overlaid graphics and data to explain strategic nuances to viewers.

Additionally, an AI tool called Olympic GPT will be launched to provide fans with real-time results, rules and verified information.

The Automatic Media Description platform is tested to help teams manage the huge volume of live video from the Games.

"AI breaks broadcasts into searchable clips, suggests shot descriptions and keywords, and helps users quickly find key moments or highlights, making storytelling faster and easier," said Exarchos.

In terms of content distribution, an automated highlights generation system, which produced over 100,000 unique clips for broadcasters during Paris 2024, will be used for the first time at a Winter Olympics.

First-person view drones will be deployed in sliding sports like bobsleigh and luge. "It really offers you a sense of being part of the competition," Exarchos said, describing the footage that follows athletes at high speed.

A shift to virtual OB vans using cloud-based infrastructure is expected to cut compound space and power use by up to 50 percent compared to traditional broadcast trucks.