AI has taken over the world in recent times. Indeed, AI has garnered its fair share of critics and fans, but it has proven to be an innovative technology. However, AI has made its way into sports and has been seen implemented in various ways to enhance the quality that is being experienced by the audience or anybody associated with the sport.

Similarly, when the 2025 X Aspen Games were about to kick off, the CEO of the event came up with a revelation that one of the events in the Games had been an experimenting hub for an AI that judged the players. However, to avoid any kind of miscommunication, he emphasized that those AI results won’t affect the current results of human judges because it is just an experiment for the future.

“Brin asked if we could do something together I grew up in judged sports, and sometimes humans get it wrong, and the cost to the athlete or a team can be really high. So I said, ‘What if we used technology to bring more objectivity to judged sports?’” As reported by Fast Company, this is the statement that was made by Jeremy Bloom, the CEO of X Games, and he emphasized how his friend Sergey Brin, who is a cofounder of Google, is working as the brain behind this AI project. 

In his career, Bloom has also been a former NFL player and a former Olympic skier. He has seen many instances of human error in sports judging, and he thinks this AI project will be game-changing after it’s implemention in sports, especially since it’s his friend’s work; he may use it in his own events.

The snowboarding SuperPipe competition also conducted the experiment, but it had no impact on the athletes’ primary scores determined by the judges. So what was the plan behind this AI project? Six weeks prior to the event, the model was trained with thousands of videos of snowboarding and how the judging was done in the sport. Bloom also credited a certain human head judge who helped with the calibration of the AI. So, how did it do in the Games?

The performance of the AI in the X Aspen Games

As promised by Jeremy Bloom, the X Aspen Games featured a 90-second clip on how the model was made. He even corrected the initial announcement, misstating it as 90 minutes instead. Indeed, the fans were able to experience what the future could hold for them, as were the athletes, as they will be judged by this AI later in their careers if they decide to remain in the sport.

But how did the AI make the prediction? The model observed the snowboarders during their practice sessions and used the collected data to predict the final scores, specifically identifying the participants who would secure the top three spots. Furthermore, these AI-generated scores were showcased alongside the human judges’ scores to see how close the model predicted it.

Furthermore, Bloom understands the current sentiments around AI and how the public views it. However, he is determined that the more accurate this model becomes in the future, the more attention it will garner from the fans in a positive way, as it won’t take away the place of the human judges but will assist them in making more accurate decisions while giving points to athletes. Indeed, this represents a significant innovation!