Life-like, AI-powered customized voice operations will be a new part of sports programming thanks to a new partnership between the sports tech company Stats Perform and Veritone Inc.

The partnership will integrate Stats Perform’s Opta sports data system with the Veritone Voice AI technology to bring localized AI voice capabilities to media organizations, content creators, teams, leagues and betting platforms. Built on the Veritone aiWARE AI operating system, Veritone Voice gives users access to multiple voice engines that combine with other cognitive capabilities such as translation, sentiment analysis and content classification.

Generating lifelike AI voice commentary for sports is the natural next step for the industry, said Steve Xeller, Stats Perform chief revenue officer. Using Veritone technology, users will be able to create custom voices in partnership with broadcasters in multiple languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Italian and Arabic. Users will also be able to incorporate lifelike voice options into stats reporting to reach wider global audiences with localized content. 

“This is particularly important for those who do not read and speak the host-distributed language as well as those with visual impairments or disabilities,” he said.

The Stat Perform data provides historical sports data that is used to power interactive content and create engaging experiences for fans. Veritone Voice, which supports both text-to-speech and speech-to-speech AI modalities, will be able to enhance Stats Perform’s offerings by enabling voice-enhanced commentary for automated match previews, recaps and play by play; empower sports fans to choose the audio content that fits their preferences; and provide access to sports reporting for those who are visually repaired.

The football media company OneFootball is already looking at how AI voice can play a role in their content strategy. 

“At OneFootball, our aim is to deliver the best football experience on the planet,” said Patrick Fischer, chief business officer at OneFootball. “We believe content that drives engagement and adds to our vertically integrated product will give our fans a reason to return to our app many times per day. Realistic and scalable audio content can play an important role in this strategy.”

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF.—Ad agency Veritone Media has a new name and new areas where it will look to expand its services. The newly rebranded Veritone One will continue to work in the radio, podcast and YouTube space, but will now also offer its services to TV, digital and social media. In addition, new hires have also been announced.

Veritone One will leverage proprietary artificial intelligence technology to track and evaluate advertising with a Cognitive Media Platform that provides real-time audio and video capture, indexing and analytics. The platform ingests thousands of hours of audio and video content daily, using its integrated cognitive engines—which include logo detection, natural language processing, voice fingerprinting, facial recognition and object detection—to create a database and index.

The company has also announced the hiring of Sean Patrick King to head its audio and television operations, and Cameron Jonsson, along with members of his former Reach + Acquire team, to lead the digital and social media efforts.

Veritone One is headquartered in Newport Beach, Calif.