On Wednesday (Jan. 14), the PGA Tour announced that it is extending its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), beginning with the Sony Open in Hawaii, and will use AI to offer a new “favorite players hub” through its mobile app and website. This feature provides personalized updates and highlights with AI-generated storytelling about the golfers the user is most interested in. The expanded partnership will also provide AI-generated graphics and statistics to supplement real-time international game broadcasts in the Tour’s World Feed.
“The PGA Tour continues to push the boundaries of how AI can enhance sports experiences for fans, players and broadcasters,” Kristin Shaff, global director of strategic partnerships at AWS, said in a statement, later adding, “The future of sports content is personalized.”
The PGA Tour has been working with AWS since 2021, when the tour made the computing platform its official provider of cloud services, as well as AI, machine learning, and deep learning. Since then, the companies have been providing moment-to-moment AI-created commentary, automated personalized content and an updated scoring system.
“We are excited to continue our AWS relationship with this expanded global partnership as we build on the progress we’ve made to further connect our fans across the globe with our players, events and content,” Dan Glod, PGA Tour’s executive vice president, corporate partnerships, said in Wednesday’s news release. “AWS shares our vision for reimagining how the game and its supporting content is developed and delivered.”
The agreement points to the growing role of artificial intelligence in sports media, where leagues are increasingly treating data and cloud infrastructure as core editorial tools rather than backstage utilities. In football, AI’s predictive analytics are changing fans’ expectations. In mixed martial arts, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is leveraging generative AI to broadcast advanced insights, statistics and graphics. In the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) used AI to supplement its broadcasts with upgraded replays and up-to-date statistical analysis. For college basketball fans, artificial intelligence is changing how bettors approach their March Madness brackets.
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Taking a broader view, AI is changing the content consumers encounter in their daily lives. Streaming giant Netflix, for instance, has been using more generative AI across its platform — in ads, content creation, distribution and more. In September, it was reported that OpenAI is trying to take a feature-length AI-generated animated film to the esteemed Cannes Film Festival. Major gaming provider Microsoft Xbox has been using generative AI to improve its non-player characters.
According to PYMNTS Intelligence data, 3 in 4 enterprise services firms are highly interested in using agentic AI for product ideation, design and innovation. Moreover, nearly 1 in 3 are already using or testing agentic AI. In October, almost two-thirds of consumers reported using AI in their personal and/or professional lives in the past year.
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