It Won't Be Al Michaels' Voice at Olympics, but It's 'Close'

During the upcoming Olympics, it might be more appropriate to refer to famed sportscaster Al Michaels as AI (artificial intelligence) Michaels. The Thursday Night Football sportscaster who previously worked on Olympic broadcasts for NBC and ABC has agreed to let NBC use a version of his voice generated by artificial intelligence for daily highlight videos on its Peacock streaming platform in what CNN sees as "a milestone for the use of AI by a major media company." "When I was approached about this, I was skeptical but obviously curious," the 79-year-old Michaels says in a press release. "Then I saw a demonstration detailing what they had in mind. I said, 'I'm in.'"

NBC said the AI-generated voice, based on Michaels' earlier NBC broadcast audio, will deliver 10-minute daily highlights packages including clips, athlete stories, and more, for Peacock subscribers based on their preferences. A large language model "analyzes subtitles and metadata to summarize clips from NBC's Olympics coverage, and then adapts those summaries to fit Michaels' signature style," before the text is fed to an AI voice model, per Vanity Fair. Editors will review all content for accuracy, but otherwise, artificial intelligence will form the bulk of the packages. There are millions of different ways highlights can come together, based on a subscriber's choices.

Michaels initially worried the voice wouldn't sound like him or would "sound like a guy who just spews cliches," per Vanity Fair. When he heard a sample, "frankly, it was astonishing" and "a little bit frightening," he tells the outlet. "It was not only close, it was almost 2% off perfect." The new role, for which he'll be paid, "does keep me somewhat attached to the Olympic Games, which I've always loved," he adds. The Summer Games in Paris, with 32 sports and upward of 300 medal events, is "the perfect place to deploy the technology," John Jelley, Peacock's senior VP of product, tells Vanity Fair. Indeed, "it would be impossible to deliver a personalized experience with a legendary sportscaster to millions of fans without it." (More artificial intelligence stories.)