On Wednesday, NBC announced that Al Michaels will be part of its 2024 Summer Olympics coverage on Peacock. Well, kind of.
Specifically, Michaels’ voice will be part of the Peacock coverage. An artificial intelligence (AI) generated version of Michaels’ voice will narrate customized recaps for users on Peacock each day.
Per the release, the recaps “will provide fans with their own customized playlist featuring highlights of the events most relevant to them from the previous day” and are labeled as “Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock.” The recaps feature “a high-quality A.I. re-creation of Michaels’ voice” narrating the clips. The AI Michaels “was trained using his past appearances on NBC and matches his signature expertise and elocution.”
Peacock’s Kelly Campbell and Michaels talked up the AI Al in the release.
“Peacock continues to introduce unique customer-first features that strengthen our unmatched leadership in live streaming,” said Kelly Campbell, President of Peacock and Direct-to-Consumer, NBCUniversal in the announcement. “With these recaps alongside interactive elements like Peacock Live Actions and Discovery Multiview, we’re bringing the best of sports together with the best of technology to deliver fans a personalized Olympics experience in a way that’s never been possible before.”
“When I was approached about this, I was skeptical but obviously curious,” said Al Michaels according to the release. “Then I saw a demonstration detailing what they had in mind. I said, ‘I’m in.’”
The idea of personalized recaps is pretty cool. Pick your sports and topics and see daily recaps for what you chose? That’s awesome! Having those personalized highlights narrated by an auto-generated version of Al Michaels? Eh, maybe that’s a step too far, especially when NBC is touting over 150 broadcasters covering the Paris Games for the network.
