Meet FACTS: ESPN's generative AI avatar for sports analytics
What's the story
ESPN, one of the biggest sports broadcasting networks, has announced an AI avatar called FACTS. The avatar will be a part of Saturday college football show SEC Nation, as revealed by Kevin Lopes, ESPN's Vice President of Business Development & Innovation, at the 4th Annual ESPN Edge Conference. As ESPN says, the main job of FACTS will be "promoting education and fun around sports analytics." The data for this cutting-edge tool will be taken from ESPN Analytics.
Data integration
FACTS: A comprehensive source of sports data
FACTS will offer everything from Football Power Index (FPI) to player and team statistics and game schedules. This makes it a sort of digitized version of Howie Schwab, ESPN's first statistician who went on to become a household name on the mid-2000s game show Stump the Schwab. However, ESPN has not yet disclosed when FACTS will debut on the network. FACTS is still in the R&D phase with SEC Nation and is being trialed for pre-game discussions.
Technological backbone
Behind the scenes of FACTS's development
The development of FACTS involves several advanced technologies. It uses NVIDIA's ACE (Avatar Cloud Engine), an Azure OpenAI integration for language processing, and ElevenLabs for its text-to-speech capabilities. This is not ESPN's first venture into AI technology as the network has previously implemented generative AI on its website to create game recaps.
AI integration
ESPN clarifies FACTS's role in sports journalism
ESPN has clarified that FACTS isn't meant to replace journalists or other talent. Speaking at its ESPN Edge Innovation Conference, the network said, "FACTS is designed to test innovations out in the market and create an outlet for ESPN Analytics's data to be accessible to fans in an engaging and enjoyable segment." This highlights the network's commitment to using AI as a tool, not a replacement.