AI is coming for sport

Data has transformed sport in recent decades—from identifying the best place to shoot from in basketball and football, to helping recruit the perfect baseball player. The new age of AI, which can utilise vast amounts of data on players, promises even deeper insights. Teams are experimenting with AI tools that can help pick the best players and prepare the best tactics for individual matches. Perhaps one day these models may even be able to predict injuries. AI models could transform sport—and the experiments with games could also inform the future of AI itself.

Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: The Economist’s Abby Bertics; James Tozer of Prospect Sporting Insights; Patrick Lucey of Stats Perform; Petar Veličković of Google DeepMind.