Sport has always been about moments of unscripted theatre: the last-minute goal, the unexpected comeback, the heroic underdog. All are stories that get replayed, shared and debated long after the final whistle blows. But increasingly, the way we experience those moments is being shaped by artificial intelligence.”
Just a few years ago, we were witnessing how AI was beginning to transform sports through better data, personalised content, immersive experiences and smarter performance analysis. Since then, the technology has moved from experimentation into the mainstream. As a result, the global AI-in-sports market has grown from $5.5 billion in 2021 to $10.6 billion in 2025, and it is projected to rise from $12.7 billion in 2026 to $49.9 billion by 2033, according to Grand View Research1.
More importantly, fan attitudes have evolved too, shifting from curiosity to practical acceptance. Research commissioned by IBM in 2025, involving more than 20,000 sports fans across 12 countries, found that 85% saw value in AI being integrated into their sports experience, while 56% wanted AI-powered insights and commentary2. However, concerns about authenticity remain, and fans’ acceptance depends on AI delivering something genuinely useful and personal.
So the question is no longer whether AI will change sport. It’s how far that change can go.
From watching sport to experiencing it your way
For decades, sport has largely been a one-to-many experience – the same broadcast, the same commentary and broadly the same highlights for everyone. AI is beginning to turn that model on its head.
Imagine watching the same match as another fan, but seeing a completely different version of it. Your favourite player’s performance appears first. Your most interesting statistics are surfaced automatically. The moments you missed are turned into a personalised highlights reel. And instead of searching through thousands of articles and videos, you simply ask a question.
That future is already becoming reality.
In 2025, the Premier League launched its AI-powered Companion with Microsoft, allowing fans to explore more than 30 seasons of statistics, 300,000 articles and 9,000 videos through a personalised conversational experience. This represents a significant shift: AI is not only helping fans find the content they want, but it is beginning to understand what they want to experience through that content. And fans are actively embracing this change. Capgemini’s 2025 research found that 54% of fans surveyed had switched from traditional search engines to AI tools to access sports information3.
Content without the waiting
Another major change is happening behind the scenes.
Sport generates enormous amounts of data and content, but historically it has taken people, time and money to turn that information into something fans can consume. Generative AI is dramatically accelerating that process and reducing relative costs. For instance the US Open uses AI to create audio commentary and text captions for highlight reels from every men’s and women’s singles match.
That matters because the opportunity is not simply to produce more content; it’s to produce the right content, for the right fan, at the right moment. In theory, this means a fan in the UK can consume a five-minute tactical overview, while someone watching in Asia accesses translated commentary. A fantasy sports player can pull from a full statistical analysis, while a new follower can better understand the rules.
One event. Now with thousands of possible experiences.
Smarter sport, not just smarter content
And the transformation goes well beyond fan engagement. AI is increasingly being used to analyse performance, identify talent, optimise training, detect injury risk and support decisions during competition, while computer vision and tracking technologies are changing officiating.
In 2025, the Premier League introduced semi-automated offside technology, using optical player tracking to improve the speed and efficiency of drawing the virtual offside line. Meanwhile, AI is opening up new ways of developing athletes. In 2020, our client ALK Capital (owners of Burnley Football Club) invested in aiScout, which describes itself as the world’s first fully-automated platform for discovering and developing talent that consistently evaluates players from all over the world against benchmarked data.
These powerful AI applications give coaches, athletes, analysts, broadcasters and marketers the ability to see more, understand faster and act more decisively.
The new frontier: AI meets storytelling
But there is a danger of becoming too focused on the technology. Sport isn’t compelling because of the amount of data it produces. It’s compelling because we care. We care about the athlete, the rivalry, the shared the moment of glory, or disappointment, that becomes part of sporting history.
AI can identify the moment. It can package it, personalise it and distribute it around the world in seconds. But it doesn’t automatically make that moment meaningful.
That remains the job of storytelling.
This is where the opportunity for sports brands becomes particularly interesting. AI can help brands understand audiences at a level that was previously impossible – their interests, behaviours, affinities and the moments that matter most to them. But the most intelligent brands will use those insights to make stories feel more human, not less so.
From mass audiences to individual fandom
The next chapter of AI in sport may therefore be less about technology and more about relationships. That’s where brands come into play.
The goal isn’t simply to give every fan more content; it’s to give them more reasons to care. While faster recaps, personalisation and greater access are all ways to improve the digital sports experience, fans still value authentic connections and have genuine concerns that excessive technology could interfere with the raw enjoyment of live sport.
That tension and the ability of sports brands to balance what they deliver will define the next stage of AI in sport. Because the winning formula isn’t AI instead of human connection; it’s AI enabling more of it. Closer to the players, closer to the action, closer to the community, and, ultimately, closer to the moments that make us fall in love with sport in the first place.
For further insight into how to shape storytelling to impact preferences and behaviour, please contact us.
1 Grand View Research https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/ai-sports-market-report
2 IBM Newsroom https://newsroom.ibm.com/2025-08-18-ibm-study-sports-fans-demand-more-dynamic-digital-content,-powered-by-ai
3 Capgemini https://www.capgemini.com/gb-en/insights/research-library/tech-in-sports-2025/
