IBM and the United States Tennis Association (USTA) have announced several watsonx-powered fan features coming to the US Open digital platforms ahead of this year’s tournament. 

This year, IBM will deliver AI-generated match report summaries for every men’s and women’s singles match within minutes of the conclusion. The solution leverages technologies from IBM watsonx, including Granite 13B, its LLM specifically built for business.

Further, the US Open digital platforms will also have an enhanced version of IBM’s AI commentary by leveraging watsonx including the Granite 13B LLM, to generate more frequent, expressive, and contextual commentary, with highlight packages post-match.

“One of the key goals of the US Open Digital Platforms is to provide fans worldwide with comprehensive coverage of all the action taking place during the three weeks of the tournament,” said Brian Ryerson, Sr. Director of Digital Strategy at the USTA. “AI Match Reports enables us to efficiently deliver concise, factual match previews and reports for over 150 matches to fans across our platforms. The efficiency of providing this content at scale allows our editorial teams to focus on other storylines and interviews, ensuring we can provide the most comprehensive coverage possible.”

Additionally, IBM and the USTA Foundation also plan on collaborating to offer free career readiness training through IBM SkillsBuild. This collaboration will help drive the USTA Foundation’s mission to help under-resourced youth become more engaged in school and learning and IBM’s goal of skilling 30 million people by 2030.

The partnership will offer AI access and professional development courses to students from specific USTA Foundation National Junior Tennis & Learning (NJTL) chapters, teaching professionals, and the general public.

Furthermore, participants will have access to a new guidebook and an interactive micro-learning course, available in both English and Spanish, which will cover AI concepts and techniques used in tennis, such as electronic line calling and player analytics, as well as an introduction to LLMs like IBM Granite.