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ESPN is experimenting with an AI-powered avatar on its Saturday football broadcast, SEC Nation. The avatar’s voice will come from ElevenLabs.
At the 4th Annual ESPN Edge Conference on November 21, Kevin Lopes, ESPN’s VP of Business Development & Innovation, introduced “FACTS,” a Generative AI Avatar developed at the ESPN Edge Innovation Center. The avatar will pull information from ESPN Analytics, including the Football Power Index (FPI), player and team statistics, and game schedules, aiming to “promote education and fun around sports analytics” during broadcasts.
ESPN & SEC Nation are in research & development testing on a Generative AI avatar, 'FACTS'
• Being trialed for pre-game convos, promoting education & fun w/sports analytics
• Meant to complement ESPN's journalists & on-air commentators w/additional insightsLaunch timing TBD pic.twitter.com/hOvFc5GvK0
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) November 14, 2024
“FACTS” is built on NVIDIA Omniverse, utilizing its ACE microservices, and integrates with Azure OpenAI for language processing and ElevenLabs for speech synthesis. Currently in development, it’s being tested by SEC Nation, with integration timing still under discussion.
According to The Verge, the avatar resembles a bot version of Howie Schwab, a sports enthusiast who turned his love for statistics into a long ESPN career and hosted the 2000s game show Stump the Schwab, though it has yet to be seen in action.
Fears of Replacing Human Journalists
In September, ESPN began publishing AI-generated recaps of women’s soccer games, with plans to expand to other sports. Critics argue these essential summaries could eventually take over the role of human journalists.
In its announcement at the ESPN Edge Innovation Conference, the network stated that “FACTS” is “absolutely not” intended to replace reporters or other talent.
