We’ve just received this press release from MTB World Series organisers Warner Brothers Discovery. We’ve checked, and it’s not April Fool’s Day. Are you ready? There is random bold text, there is Artificial Intelligence, the promise of enhanced experiences for viewers, and a partnership with Amazon. There is even the word ‘leveraged’.
Are you sure you’re ready? Then read on. And if you can still string sentences together after reading it, please head to the comments and tell us what you think.
WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY LAUNCHES GENERATIVE AI-POWERED CYCLING CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE PLATFORM IN COLLABORATION WITH AWS
New AI technology platform transforms storytelling capabilities for WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series coverage, enhancing the viewer experience through data-driven insights
4thApril 2025| Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Sports Europe today announces the launch ofCycling Central Intelligence (CCI), an innovative generativeAI-powered platform developed in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), that transforms how mountain bike events are brought to viewers worldwide. The platform debuts at the2025 WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series season opener in Araxá, Minas Gerais (Brazil) this weekend, marking asignificant advancement in sports broadcasting technology.
As part of this initiative,AWS becomes the Official Cloud Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning Providerfor the WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series, supporting WBD’s mission to further enhance on-screen experiences for mountain bike’s global fan base.
“What makes CCI truly revolutionary is how it enhances and complements the human expertise that makes sports broadcasting special,”said Chris Ball, VP, Cycling Events at WBD Sports.“Our commentators and producers bring unmatched levels of experience and passion for the sport, and through our partnership with AWS, CCI ensures they can expertly craft the compelling stories and insights that our viewers love and that will keep them engaged.
“This collaboration represents a significant step forward in our ongoing commitment to innovation in sports broadcasting,”Ball continued. “By combining cutting-edge AI technology with our leading production expertise, we’re setting new standards for how mountain bike events are brought to life for viewers around the globe.”
“AWS is helping Warner Bros. Discovery enhance the art of sports storytelling through the practical uses of generative AI,“said Samira Panah Bakhtiar, General Manager of Media & Entertainment, Games, and Sports at AWS.“This collaboration showcases how AWS’ generative AI services can amplify human expertise. By handling time-consuming research and data synthesis tasks, CCI frees up WBD’s talented commentary teams to focus on their passion and ability to capture the excitement of live sports.”
The CCI platform leverages advanced generative AI capabilities of Amazon Bedrock and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 on AWS to create aunified knowledge base that processes and analyzes hundreds of documents about riders and events, along with vast databases of results, race times, and athletic performance data.
This comprehensive system enables commentators and production teams toaccess information through natural language queries, dramaticallyreducing research timeand enablingmore engaging, data-driven storytelling. Working backwards from the needs of its broadcasting teams, WBD Sports Europe collaborated with teams at AWS to envision CCI, develop a proof-of-concept, and build the solution.
CCI’s technical architecture carefullybalances AI capabilities with human expertise.The platform utilizes Amazon Textract for document processing, Amazon Translate forbreaking down language barriersacross international content, and Amazon Comprehend fororganizing and structuring information. Amazon Bedrock integrates with these services while ensuringbroadcasting professionals maintain complete control over the storytelling process.
The platformwill continue to evolve throughout the season, with plans to incorporate additional features that will enable WBD’s commentators and production teams to serve mountain bike fans with the best possible live content and viewing experiences.
The2025 WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Seriesbegins inAraxá, Minas Gerais (Brazil) this weekendwith the first of 16 rounds. Live and on-demand coverage of every race is available throughWBD’s channelsand platforms includingEurosport(Europe) andTNT Sports(UK & Ireland) with streaming onMaxanddiscovery+, as well as around the world through WBD’s broadcast partners. More information on where to watch the opening round of the 2025 season is availablehere.
Feel the need to recover from that? Here’s an interview with Rob Warner, where he talks about the preparation that goes into being a great commentator.
Replies (36)
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Jesus, there really is a specific type of talentless, imagination-bereft upper management person who can’t resist some AI bollocks and sadly there are far too many of them around 😖
We’ve repeatedly advised our management buffoons that AI simply can’t do what we do without alienating our customers and introducing all sorts of difficult to spot, highly technical mistakes… but they’re doing it anyway because they clearly have no other ideas 🙄
Rob put lots off energy into XC commentary and is much missed. But i wouldn’t say he was always exactly sure who was who
Is data driven story telling how our new AI overlords lull us to sleep then hook us up to the matrix?
asignificant
I’ve never seen this word before.
Is it like asexual or ammoral?
Definitely…and English wasn’t it’s first language.
Bollocks was it’s first language, at a guess.
Can someone translate that, made zero sense to me. Maybe I’m just dumb. Load of jargon tumbleweed
Sounds like the steady stream of (mostly pointless) statistics that is part of modern kickball commentary is coming to push-bike racing.
Franks post sums it up nicely.
As for slating AI. When our cybernetic overlords take control, they’ll have trawled STW and identified the dissenting voices…. I’m sure we’ll all be first in line for the T-1000 visits.
Commentators get access to a computer………there you go.
I do hope they understand you were not attributing the content of Franks post to Frank, you weren’t were you? What!? You were? Oh DEAR!
I think it IS an April Fool… but someone asked AI which date April Fool’s day is 🤣
I read the press release and honestly have no idea what on earths they were actually talking about.
Also #F@CKAI
So revolutionary that they can’t even come up with one example of what might be improved!
It’s got to be good Chris ball says so
Looks more like a press release for Amazon than for the sport.
Does a human actually proof read this bilge?