OLYMPIC

International
Olympic
Committee

AI AGENDA
OLYMPIC
AI AGENDA
“Our continued success depends on how we
embrace the ever-accelerating development of digital
technology, and in particular Artificial Intelligence.
This makes our Olympic Agenda 2020 imperative
‘change or be changed’ even more urgent.”

Thomas Bach
IOC President
Olympic Champion – Fencing
 Contents Olympic AI Agenda 3

Contents

04 Introduction

06 Ambition and Guiding Principles: Embracing the Potential of AI

08 Five Focus Areas: Transforming Sport and the Olympic Games with AI
09 Focus Area 1: Supporting Athletes, Clean Competition and Safe Sport
10 Focus Area 2: Ensuring Equal Access to the Benefits of AI
11 Focus Area 3: Optimising Olympic and Paralympic Games Operations with a Focus on Sustainability
12 Focus Area 4: Growing Engagement with People
13 Focus Area 5: Driving Efficiency Across the Management of the IOC and Sport

The front cover image is a product 14 Mitigating AI Risks: Roles, Governance and Oversight
of creativity and technology, 14 The Role of the IOC
made with generative Artificial
Intelligence (AI) software. 15 Governance Framework
The image on page 2 shows a
hologram of IOC President Thomas 16 Olympic AI Agenda: The IOC’s Commitments
Bach addressing the opening
ceremony of the inaugural Olympic
Esports Week in June 2023. 17 The IOC AI Working Group
Contents Introduction Olympic AI Agenda 4

Introduction
“Together, we can unlock AI’s full potential to promote
solidarity, further digitalisation, improve sustainability
and resilience, and reinforce the role of sport in society.”
Olympic AI Agenda

Olympic Agenda 2020+5, the strategic roadmap of the IOC and the Opportunities and risks
wider Olympic Movement, highlights digitalisation as one of the key AI has the power to bridge some of the gaps that exist within sport,
trends influencing modern society. ensuring that athletes in even the remotest of countries can gain
access to advanced resources. AI technology promises to revolutionise
The digital revolution has only accelerated in the years since Olympic athlete training with hyper-personalised programmes; optimise
Agenda 2020+5 was adopted in March 2021. Transformative technologies performance through detailed analysis of athletes’ data; transform
such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are increasingly offering us the judging and refereeing with impartial precision; and customise the
possibility to reshape every facet of our lives. individual viewing experiences of billions of Olympic fans around
the world.
That includes sport. While there have been stand-alone projects in
different sports and different areas, there has been no holistic approach But with every opportunity comes risks. In many ways, the concept
to explore the great potential of AI while mitigating the risks. of AI stands in stark contrast to the particularly human context of
Olympism. The Olympic AI Agenda recognises this concern, as
Yet the possibilities for the deployment of AI within sport represent well as other risks and ethical questions raised by AI in relation to
a ground-breaking opportunity for the global accessibility of sport, data privacy, security, accountability, fairness, job displacement and
aligning seamlessly with the IOC’s mission for solidarity and inclusivity. environmental impact.
Contents Introduction Olympic AI Agenda 5

Introduction
It is important to acknowledge that AI is evolving at an unprecedented The result of those discussions is this Olympic AI Agenda. It aims to
pace. There are still many unknowns at this stage, and we remain guide the IOC’s efforts to maximise the opportunities and manage the
humble in admitting these uncertainties. We are committed to adapting risks of the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence to support
our plans according to future developments and regulations in the athletes and to drive the development of sport and the Olympic Games.
AI field, and we recognise the need for ongoing vigilance and
responsible implementation. A transformative journey – together
The Olympic AI Agenda presents the envisioned impact AI can deliver
Given the fast pace of technological change, it is impossible to identify for the Olympic Movement. It establishes our ambition and guiding
all the risks today, much less to provide all the answers. However, this principles, identifies high-impact areas for AI application, and
Olympic AI Agenda sets out a governance and oversight framework explores the framework and governance mechanisms used to mitigate
to identify and mitigate risk, and it will be a continuous process to risk and promote the responsible use of AI. In addition, it outlines
leverage the insights and experience of prominent experts to support four commitments that the IOC has made as it takes the first steps
the deployment of AI for the Olympic Movement. in integrating AI into the Olympic ecosystem and leveraging the
power of AI in its operations, in the Olympic Games and across the
The IOC AI Working Group Olympic Movement.
Recognising that the continued success of the Olympic Games
and the Olympic Movement will depend heavily on how AI is embraced, The Olympic AI Agenda also recognises that the future of AI in sport is
the IOC established an AI Working Group in 2023 – a panel of experts not a solo venture. That is why the IOC is inviting all our stakeholders
from around the world, including AI pioneers, academics, athletes and across the Olympic Movement – athletes, International Federations
representatives of technology companies. (For a list of the members (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs), Worldwide Olympic
of the AI Working Group, see page 17.) Partners, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and many
other organisations – to embark on this transformative journey, while
The IOC AI Working Group has undertaken a broad review of the remaining vigilant to the potential risks. Together, we can unlock the
uses for AI in sport, and of high-impact areas where the IOC could full potential of AI to promote solidarity, further digitalisation, improve
inspire the use of AI in its role as leader of the Olympic Movement sustainability and resilience, and reinforce the role of sport in society –
and owner of the Olympic Games. all aligned with our vision to build a better world through sport.
Contents Ambition and Guiding Principles Olympic AI Agenda 6

Ambition and Guiding Principles:

Embracing the Potential of AI
“The International Olympic Committee inspires
and accelerates change across global sport by
embracing the potential of Artificial Intelligence
to advance fairness, excellence, solidarity and the
Olympic experience.”

IOC Ambition Statement

The IOC’s vision for the deployment of AI is FIVE GUIDING PRINCIPLES

informed by the Olympic values of excellence,
respect and friendship, and by our working It is crucial that AI is used responsibly, fostering trust
principles. within the Olympic Movement, if we are to harness
its full power. The IOC is committed to defining a
Our vision is for the IOC, as the leader of the path for AI that is both ethical and trustworthy.
Olympic Movement, to inspire and accelerate
positive change across global sport by embracing To this end, the IOC has developed five guiding
the potential of AI to support solidarity and principles that will steer the creation, implementation,
universality, ensure equal access to sport, reflect management and assessment of AI initiatives,
our unity in diversity, maintain our autonomy and ensuring they align with the IOC’s vision for the
good governance, and promote sustainability. deployment of AI.
Contents Ambition and Guiding Principles Olympic AI Agenda 7

Foster an ethos of integrity Honour traditions while embracing innovation

We will encourage high standards of transparency, We will honour timeless Olympic traditions and
responsibility and safety to maintain trust while values while using AI to create new possibilities
harnessing the power of AI. for the Olympic Movement.

Improve access and fairness Collaborate for shared impact

We will leverage technology and deliver impact We will work with stakeholders inside and
that reduces barriers to participation, and ensures outside of the Olympic Movement to share
equal access to sport and the benefits of AI. knowledge of opportunities and risks – and to
This will further improve fairness, and will deliver support a sustainable future impact.
positive social and environmental change.
With these guiding principles, the IOC is
Scale creation and distribution positioned to explore areas where AI can
of moments that matter strengthen solidarity, promote the universality
Together with our partners, we will use AI of sport and equal access to new technology,
technologies to create memorable and inspiring and support sports development for athletes,
personalised experiences for fans and stakeholders fans, partners and all Olympic Movement
across the Olympic Movement. stakeholders.
Contents Five Focus Areas Olympic AI Agenda 8

Five Focus Areas:

Transforming Sport and
the Olympic Games with AI
Led by our guiding principles and dedicated to providing benefits to all stakeholders within
the Olympic Movement, the IOC has defined a strategic goal to leverage AI effectively across
five key focus areas:

1. Supporting Athletes, Clean Competition and Safe Sport

2. Ensuring Equal Access to the Benefits of AI

3. Optimising Olympic and Paralympic Games Operations with a Focus on Sustainability

4. Growing Engagement with People

5. Driving Efficiency Across the Management of the IOC and Sport

Contents Five Focus Areas Olympic AI Agenda 9

1
Focus Area 1
Athletes are at the heart of the Olympic Movement. From talent identification
to injury recovery, the IOC believes that AI has the potential to transform
the lives and careers of athletes around the world.

Supporting Athletes, This includes:

Clean Competition Improving talent identification

and Safe Sport AI can significantly boost talent identification in sport by evaluating
performance metrics, physical traits, skills and other key data. This will
offer new opportunities for individual athletes around the world.

Advancing performance and training

AI analysis of athletes’ data has the potential to reshape training and
coaching, providing athletes worldwide with personalised coaching
and tailor-made training. This will significantly advance performance.

Improving judging and refereeing

AI can help to reduce human bias in judging and refereeing. It can also
offer real-time analysis.

Boosting health, wellbeing and clean competition

AI can help to prevent injuries, tailor athletes’ recovery plans and support
mental health. AI can also support anti-doping organisations to detect
doping – and, in this way, it can advance clean sport.

Fostering Safe Sporting environments

AI will help to further strengthen initiatives that focus on the prevention of
and appropriate response to harassment and abuse in sport. An example
is the use of AI to detect at scale and pace targeted online abuse towards
athletes at the Olympic Games and other sports events.
Contents Five Focus Areas Olympic AI Agenda 10

2
Focus Area 2
AI has the potential to support the IOC’s goals of universality,
inclusivity and fair sport: creating new opportunities for athletes,
coaches and countries who may not have access to the best facilities
and support, while also improving fair competition through improvements

Ensuring Equal Access to judging and refereeing.

to the Benefits of AI This includes:

Building solidarity through technology
The IOC wants to make the benefits of AI available to all athletes, IFs,
NOCs and other members of the Olympic Movement so that they can
benefit from this transformative new technology.

Facilitating access to coaching

AI can support coaches and training worldwide by developing and
facilitating equal access to data-based training plans customised for
each individual athlete.

Advancing AI use by educating the sports movement

Through education and explanation, the IOC will facilitate the application
of AI for the Olympic Movement. By doing so, it will break down barriers
that may prevent people from using AI for the benefit of sport.
Contents Five Focus Areas Olympic AI Agenda 11

3
Focus Area 3
AI can streamline operations for the Olympic Games: improving
efficiency, reducing costs and augmenting sustainability at every
phase of event delivery, from the Games candidature stage to
managing post-Games legacies.

Optimising Olympic
and Paralympic Games This includes:

Operations with a Optimising and streamlining Games organisation and operations

AI can increase efficiency, reduce costs and add value across every

Focus on Sustainability aspect of every edition of the Olympic Games – from transportation
to technology, venue design to results management, recruitment to
workforce training, improving both delivery and sustainability.

Maximising AI impact through knowledge transfer

The IOC undertakes to share this knowledge, enabling the Organising
Committees for the Olympic Games (OCOGs), the IFs, the NOCs and
other sports event organisers to deliver more engaging, cost-effective
and sustainable events.

Strengthening the sustainability of venues

AI can be used to optimise sports venue design for energy savings
and reduced carbon emissions, contributing to the reduction of
sport’s climate impact and supporting the United Nations’
Sustainable Development Goals.
Contents Five Focus Areas Olympic AI Agenda 12

4
Focus Area 4
The IOC, together with its commercial and broadcast partners, aims
to engage both new and existing fans by leveraging AI to enrich the
experience of the Olympic Games and other Olympic events on digital
platforms. This includes offering additional value and immersive virtual

Growing Engagement experiences for spectators and fans.

with People This includes:

Transforming the Games experience for athletes and fans
AI offers fans the opportunity to engage more closely before, during and
after the Olympic Games, including through athlete-centric storytelling,
personalised schedules, venue navigation and augmented reality features.

Enriching the Olympic Games experience for fans

AI provides opportunities for much more personalised fan experiences,
whether at the Olympic Games or elsewhere, bringing them closer to the
action with customised content, real-time statistics and direct links to
Olympic merchandise. Fans can also leverage AI technologies to share
their own Olympic moments.

Transforming production workflows

AI automation holds the potential to revolutionise workflows, driving
efficiencies across production and editing processes – for example,
through automatic highlights generation and generative assisted editing.
Moreover, AI has the potential to reduce the broadcast footprint through
lower power consumption and physical space.
Contents Five Focus Areas Olympic AI Agenda 13

5
Focus Area 5
AI can be used to boost the operational efficiency of the IOC
administration and across the entire Olympic Movement. By equipping
staff with AI tools for better decision-making, knowledge expansion
and task automation, we can optimise functional areas and improve the

Driving Efficiency efficiency and working practices of sports organisations.

Across the This includes:

Management of Facilitating collaboration and participation within organisations

the IOC and Sport AI technology can streamline internal communication by transcribing
meeting notes, facilitating multilingual translation, organising contracts and
archives, and so on. This boosts collaboration, participation and efficiency
within the IOC and among organisations across the Olympic Movement.

Offering financial efficiency and insights

AI can be used to streamline financial tasks, sharpen forecasts and
reports, optimise capital management, assess risks and meet regulatory
requirements. These applications can boost efficiency and support
workforces, improving operations and unlocking new opportunities.

Streamlining talent acquisition and onboarding

AI can streamline recruitment by efficiently matching candidates to
roles, deliver onboarding to boost administrative efficiency, support
interactive training and development, and accelerate reporting to aid
decision-making.
Contents Mitigating AI Risks Olympic AI Agenda 14

Mitigating AI Risks:
Roles, Governance and Oversight
AI must be developed and used responsibly in order to maximise its benefits and minimise its risks.

As AI technology evolves, the IOC and its stakeholders must ensure its use reflects the
Olympic Movement’s values. Establishing clear roles, responsibilities and governance
at the outset of this journey will enable us to use AI effectively, enhancing our organisation
and the Olympic Movement while managing potential risks.

The Role of the IOC The IOC will take three key roles: Through these clearly defined roles, the IOC will:

As the Olympic Movement embraces The IOC as a Pioneer • improve the efficiency of the Olympic Games
AI, the IOC will lead in guiding its use The IOC will lead the creation and and the IOC;
in sports. While not governing all AI management of AI assets to accelerate
• accelerate existing initiatives in line with
applications, the IOC will lead by example, delivery, further improve fairness and
Olympic Agenda 2020+5;
promoting and supporting trustworthy facilitate equal access to the benefits of
AI programmes and initiatives that AI across the Olympic Movement. • boost capabilities across the Olympic Movement;
enrich the Olympic Games and promote • develop and promote a greater understanding
fairness and sustainability within the The IOC as a Catalyst of the benefits and risks of AI;
Olympic Movement. The IOC will nurture our AI initiatives
• support Olympic Movement stakeholders
through resourcing, convening partners
by disseminating information on these benefits
and capabilities, and supporting knowledge
and risks;
transfer to and among all members of the
Olympic Movement. • offer guidance to maximise benefits
and minimise risks; and
The IOC as a Guardian • share insights and best practices with
The IOC will oversee or endorse AI initiatives the Olympic Movement.
to ensure accessibility to sport, regardless of
background or geography, and encourage
the adoption of AI in this context.
Contents Mitigating AI Risks Olympic AI Agenda 15

Mitigating AI Risks:
Roles, Governance and Oversight

Governance Framework

Good governance, including transparency Robust and reliable Transparent

and responsibility, is a longstanding AI application must be robust – functioning Each user must be informed how their data is being
priority for the IOC. Developing a strong accurately even in the face of unexpected collected and how AI decisions or outputs may
governance framework will assist in inputs, maintaining the reliability and validity affect them.
assessing and mitigating AI risks. We have of its outputs.
identified important factors for ensuring Respect for privacy
AI's trustworthiness: Accountable Data collection, storage, handling, sharing
All stakeholders must be aware of their roles and destruction must align with public expectations
Responsible and responsibilities. Documented processes for privacy, such as by limiting which kinds of
The use of AI must align with the and policies must be put in place to clearly data are collected and how sensitive information
principles and values of the Olympic articulate accountability for AI outcomes. is obscured.
Movement, including supporting equity,
sustainability, collaboration and integrity. Accessible As a pioneer, a catalyst for innovation and a
The potential benefits of AI must be made guardian of AI initiatives within the Olympic
Safe and secure available to individuals and organisations Movement, the IOC intends to develop governance
AI must not pose safety risks to people, across the Olympic Movement. mechanisms and guidelines for trustworthy and
venues, infrastructure or organisations. responsible AI use. Effective AI governance will
The model and underlying data must Fair and impartial require everyone in the Olympic Movement to work
protect against inappropriate use, AI must be free from latent bias together – ensuring the safe use of AI for the benefit
disclosure and cybersecurity threats. and partiality. of athletes, fans and the entire Olympic Movement.
Contents The IOC’s Commitments Olympic AI Agenda 16

Olympic AI Agenda:
The IOC’s Commitments
With this Olympic AI Agenda, the IOC is making four commitments to guide the Olympic Movement towards our goal of
accelerating positive change across global sport in our five focus areas.

Governance Strategy Partner Engagement Solutions

We will develop and We will develop an IOC We will establish We will leverage learnings
share a trustworthy AI roadmap, recognising an AI engagement from the Olympic
AI Framework for the that it will need to be programme, convening Games Paris 2024 and
Olympic Movement adapted in the future. the Worldwide Olympic other Olympic events
to guide the future In this way, the IOC will Partners to support to identify AI solutions
application of AI in lead by example and use the implementation of that will improve the
accordance with the AI to support meeting our AI ambition, and to operational efficiency and
Olympic values. the recommendations address risk identification sustainability of future
set out in Olympic and mitigation. Olympic Games.
Agenda 2020+5.

The Olympic Movement is still at the beginning of its AI journey, which will continuously evolve with the development of new technology.
These initial steps underline our commitment to being the voice of sport in the global AI dialogue. A concerted effort by the entire
Olympic Movement will enable us to shape the future of sport.

Together, we will strengthen the uniqueness and universality of the Olympic Games, reinforce solidarity, promote responsibility and sustainability,
foster fairness, and ensure that athletes, coaches and organisations across the Olympic Movement benefit from equal access to AI.

As with sport, so too with AI. We will move faster, reach higher, and become stronger – together.
Contents The IOC AI Working Group Olympic AI Agenda 17

The IOC AI Working Group

The IOC set up an AI Working Group in 2023. This panel of experts,
drawn from around the world, included AI pioneers, academics,
athletes and technology companies. The AI Working Group consisted of:

Christopher G. Brinton Daniel Ferrante Daniela Rus

Professor of Electrical and Computer Partner, Deloitte Deputy Dean of Research,
Engineering, Purdue University Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Todd Harple
Alistair Brownlee Olympics AI Innovation Program Lead, Gadi Singer
Olympic champion in triathlon Intel VP and Director of Emergent
Member, IOC Athletes’ Commission AI Research, Intel Labs
Amit Joshi
Jesse Davis Professor & AI Expert, IMD Business School Howard van Rooijen
Professor, Department of Computer Science, Founder, Endjin, and Microsoft Azure MVP
KU Leuven Patrick Lucey
Chief Scientist, Stats Perform Pascal Vuilliomenet
Randall Davis Project Manager, EPFL Sportech initiative
Professor of Computer Science and Nitin Mittal
Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts US AI Strategic Growth Offering Leader, Sarah Walker
Institute of Technology (MIT) Deloitte Olympic silver medallist in BMX
IOC Member
Soumitra Dutta Agni Orfanoudaki Vice-Chair, IOC Athletes’ Commission
Peter Moores Dean and Professor of Associate Professor of Operations
Management, Saïd Business School at Management, Saïd Business School at Dr Wang Jian
the University of Oxford the University of Oxford Founder, Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba
International Maison Olympique
Olympic 1007 Lausanne, Switzerland
Committee www.olympics.com/ioc