NBC announced on Wednesday that it plans to utilize an artificial clone of the renowned sports broadcaster Al Michaels‘ voice for narrating its daily streaming recaps of the Summer Olympics in Paris.
The streaming service announced that “Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock” will showcase narration from a “high-quality A.I. re-creation” of Al Michaels’ voice, which has been trained using his previous appearances on NBC to replicate his “signature expertise and elocution.” Peacock and NBC News are both owned by NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast.
Peacock explained that Michaels’ voice for the Daily Olympic recap is based on his previous appearances on NBC. The broadcaster approved the use of his voice.
Earlier in the week, the company provided a brief demonstration of the Daily Olympic recap for reporters, and it unmistakably resembles Michaels’ voice.
Criticism from Al Michaels fans
Fans were quick to criticize this move by NBC, with mostly addressing how disrespectful it was.
One fan with username @itsdomyoutube said, “lmfao bro is alive just hire him.”
Username @ukraniandream commented on the usage of AI stating, “AI needs to be banned.”
Another X (formerly twitter) user with the handle @4kteli22 said, “This is so disrespectful.”
@MacDicksonShow remarked on the AI usage in connection with the Olympics, “Horrible idea… Al Michaels is the best, but AI, fake, cheating, is the opposite of the spirit of the Olympics.”
Al Michaels reaction to AI Michaels
In a Vanity Fair interview released Wednesday, 79-year-old Michaels confessed he was initially hesitant about NBCUniversal executives’ idea—until he listened to the AI-generated rendition of his voice, which can greet users by name.
“Frankly, it was astonishing. It was amazing,” he shared in a phone interview with the magazine last weekend.
“And it was a little bit unsettling,” he continued.
Michaels has been involved with NBC’s Olympics coverage since 2010. Prior to that, during his time at ABC, he famously called the legendary “Miracle on Ice” game. He also served as the lead play-by-play announcer for NBC Sunday Night Football.
Currently, Michaels works as a commentator for Amazon’s Thursday Night Football.
“This is the first, personalized sports highlights powered by Gen A.I., featuring a legendary voice, in this case the great Al Michaels,” said Chairman and CEO of Comcast, Brian Roberts on Wednesday.
Michaels expressed his astonishment at how accurately the cloned voice replicated his style, saying, “It was not just close; it was almost 2% off perfect.”
AI Michaels will be personalized for each user
An NBCU executive noted that a team of NBC Sports editors will meticulously review all content before it is incorporated into the recaps to ensure “quality, validation, and accuracy,” particularly focusing on the pronunciation and intonation of specific names and events.
Beginning July 27, Peacock subscribers can access the recap at www.peacocktv.com/olympics on supported web browsers and the Peacock app on select mobile and tablet devices. Users will complete a short questionnaire to personalize their recap according to their sports interests and preferred highlights. Michaels will personally greet each viewer by name.
The technology utilizes hundreds of NBC Sports-produced clips daily to create a personalized playlist of approximately 10 minutes, showcasing the most relevant moments from the previous day for each user.
Peacock, the official streaming platform for the Olympics, will broadcast every sport and event, covering all 329 medal events with a total of 5,000 hours of content.
The company hopes the Olympics will significantly increase its subscriber count. As of March, Peacock had 34 million paying subscribers. According to Variety, the service has experienced around $8.5 billion in losses since it went live.
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