AI Al Michaels will voice 2024 Olympic highlights

PARIS, France — Legendary sportscaster Al Michaels is lending his voice to brand-new technology that will create personalized daily highlights of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock” will allow viewers to create their own highlight packages by picking sports in advance and what they would like to see.

Artificial Intelligence will then deliver those highlights, complete with an AI-generated model of Michaels’ voice narrating the action.

“A.I. Michaels” was taught how to sound like the veteran broadcaster from his vast catalog of appearances on NBC.

“When I was approached about this, I was skeptical but obviously curious,” Michaels said. “Then I saw a demonstration detailing what they had in mind. I said, ‘I’m in.’”

NBC estimates it will create about 7 million variations of highlight packages from its estimated 5,000 hours of live coverage.

Starting July 27, viewers can visit the Olympic hub and home page of Peacock and opt into the highlights they’d like to see.

That includes viewers’ three favorite sports and preferred topics, including behind-the-scenes and backstories, top competition, viral and trending moments, and a spotlight on international teams.

The technology will take content from hundreds of NBC Sports-produced clips to create a playlist about 10 minutes long showing the moments most relevant to each viewer.

Michaels has been a staple in sports broadcasting for 60 years and is perhaps best known for his iconic call when the U.S. men’s hockey team defeated the Soviet Union in the gold medal game of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York – “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”

Competition for the 2024 Paris Olympics begins July 24, two days before the opening ceremony on July 26. The closing ceremony will take place Aug. 11.

See the full schedule on the NBC Olympics website.