The Next Announcer You Hear May Be Generated by AI: How NBC's AI Version of Al Michaels Changes the Game

The Next Announcer You Hear May Be Generated by AI: How NBC's AI Version of Al Michaels Changes the Game Sportscaster community views AI as a new tool that needs guardrails By Dan Daley, Audio Editor

Tuesday, July 23, 2024 - 7:00 am

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Viewers watching the 2024 Paris Olympics on Peacock will hear a familiar voice. At least, they may think so. NBC Sports announced this month that it will use AI software to re-create the voice of veteran sportscaster Al Michaels to deliver daily recaps of the Summer Games for subscribers of its Peacock streaming platform.

The AI version of Michaels's iconic voice is a new tool in a combined AI and sports toolbox. It will be used for 10-minute highlights packages, called Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock, offering events updates, athlete backstories, and other related content.

(With a nod to the arrival of Next Generation Audio's personalization features, the packages will be able to be tailored to subscriber preferences. According to an NBCUniversal press release, the highlights can be packaged in about 7 million ways, pulled from 5,000 hours of live coverage, effectively making AI a significantly more efficient way to deliver personalized recaps.)

Legendary sportscaster Al Michaels participated in NBC Sports' AI generation of his voice for a daily Paris 2024 recap on Peacock.

Michaels, an Emmy Award-winning sportscaster and currently play-by-play announcer for Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime, is reportedly compensated for his involvement in the daily AI Olympic recaps. He has worked on Olympics Games for both NBC and ABC, even calling the Miracle on Ice game at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY.

When I was approached about this, I was skeptical but obviously curious, Michaels said in a press release. Then I saw a demonstration detailing what they had in mind. I said, I'm in.'

Although it has not been revealed which large-language model (LLM) software is used for the project, NBC Sports stressed that the AI system used to create the voice was trained using Michaels's audio from prior NBC broadcasts. The company added that a team of NBC Sports editors will review all the content, including audio and clips, to ensure that all the spoken content is factually accurate and names are pronounced correctly.

Controversial Technology The use of an AI voice for the Olympics comes at a time when the use of AI to mimic or impersonate existing voices is causing considerable controversy. Even Michaels himself approached the idea cautiously, confiding in an interview with Vanity Fair, It was amazing And it was a little bit frightening.

The number of AI-powered voice generators that can simulate certain types of voices, such as Artist.io and Speechify, is growing by leaps and bounds. More specifically, many services now offer AI-enabled sports voices, driven by the growth of broadcast and, especially, streaming sports. Veed's services will make it sound like a genuine radio commentator in one click and can also add generic video AI avatars to sync the words to video.

Very much a part of the Tik-Tok era of technology, mimicking known sports-announcer voices has become a DIY proposition. For instance, the sound of Scottish Association football commentator Derek Rae -who is also the voice of ESPN's English-language coverage of Bundesliga, DFB Pokal, and La Liga - is readily available through 101 Soundboards, one of scores of online AI voice-sound translators that offer sports as a focus.

Even before AI came onto the scene as robustly as it has, sportscasters faced concerns about appropriation of their signature sonics. For instance, legendary horseracing announcer Dave Johnson's marquee - and formally trademarked - expression And down the stretch they come! was used, in his voice, in an episode of the Netflix series The Crown. Johnson sued the streaming platform and several related entities and persons for the intentional, and wrongful use of his voice and persona, without his written consent in New York County Supreme Court last year. It was one of several instances when the announcer resorted to litigation to protect his IP.

The Industry's Take on the AI-Al Michaels Move Technology Rivers' Ghazenfer Mansoor: This isn't just a neat trick; it shows us what the future might be like.

NBC's recent big surprise - using AI to copy Al Michaels's voice for Olympics updates - has everyone talking, says Ghazenfer Mansoor, CEO, Technology Rivers, a software developer. As someone who is very involved in the technology field, I believe this isn't just a neat trick; it shows us what the future might be like.

Among benefits that Mansoor notes are AI's 24/7 availability (especially useful when events take place across distant time zones, such as Paris 2024, whose Torch Relay journeyed to six overseas French territories: Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Reunion Island), personalization features that help viewers engage with some of the more arcane sports, and cost savings that can be applied elsewhere in the production budget. On the other hand, he notes the potential for job displacements and AI's inability (so far, at least) to emulate genuine passion.

Instead of seeing AI as a rival, he advises, sports commentators should view it like an ally. AI can handle simple tasks, which allows commentators to spend more time sharing the special insights and personality that only they possess. Think of it as a powerful assistant rather than a replacement.

Institutionally, the sportscaster community is cautious about AI's entering its domain. The National Sports Media Association (NSMA), a national trade organization of nearly 1,000 members, focuses on sportscasting as an inst

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