A new kind of commentator made its debut during the snowboarding competition at this year’s Winter X Games in Aspen. It's called The Owl AI – and it’s powered by artificial intelligence.

The Owl AI demonstrated its ability by predicting the snowboarding half-pipe podium lineup, announcing in a cool male voice: “Third place Ayumu Hirano. Second Yuto Totsuka. And for the top spot Scotty James.”

The prediction turned out to be exactly right.

This new technology is being promoted by Boulder resident and X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom. In addition to predicting athlete performance, Bloom says The Owl AI will help make sports more fair by improving judging and refereeing. He recently launched a business to bring the technology to all kinds of sports.

Colorado Sun reporter Jason Blevins recently wrote about The Owl AI, how it was used in The X Games, and how it might be transformative for other sports.

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Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.