7 Ways AI Has Been Integrated In Sports Around The World

Last Updated:January 12, 2026, 18:23 IST

How AI is transforming sports like NBA, Tennis, Football, Baseball, Formula 1, and Golf with real-time decisions, injury management, scouting, and advanced strategy simulations.

AI (representative)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is, fortunately or unfortunately, everywhere around us. The time to discuss whether AI will impact our daily lives is long gone, for it is already doing so at a very rapid pace.

Below, we analyse how it is impacting sports, using seven examples.

Basketball

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is already using AI systems that track the 3D movement of players and the ball simultaneously. The AI decides the close calls, like whether a shot was blocked illegally or if a player beat the buzzer, in less than half a second, ensuring the game stays fair without long pauses.

Many teams are also using AI for scouting and injury-management needs.

Tennis

Some Professional tours have replaced line judges with AI-powered automated umpiring that determines ‘in’ or ‘out’ calls with high precision. Beyond officiating, platforms like SwingVision use computer vision to provide players with instant feedback on ball speed, placement, and spin rates, allowing for immediate tactical adjustments between sets. Some players also use wearable devices in training, which use AI-powered data.

Cricket

Cricket is probably the most backward international-level sport in the world when it comes to modern technologies to enhance player performance. Data analysis is only recently catching up to the level where a sport like football, for example, was in the early 2000s.

Naturally, AI usage is quite limited, and for now, it’s restricted to sponsored arrangements like ChatGPT and Gemini chatbots being used for understanding pitch conditions before a match, or discussing stats and records.

Football

Though significantly better than cricket, Football was also slow to catch up with technology and data analysis. However, now, teams worldwide are using AI for their day-to-day activities, from tracking players on the training field, to managing their workload and injury risks, and even helping professionals scout by easing up the burden of going through thousands of file to find the best fit, it is almost revolutionary.

For the upcoming 2026 World Cup, FIFA has already announced that it will use AI-driven computer vision to create real-time 3D avatars of players to provide instant, millimeter-accurate offside decisions to augment the semi-automated offside tech. This system also uses AI stabilization overlays on referee body cameras, allowing billions of fans to see a steady, high-definition broadcast of the game from the official’s on-field perspective.

Baseball

The most visible change in Major League Baseball is the Automated Ball-Strike system, where AI cameras track pitches within a fraction of an inch to ensure perfectly fair calls. Teams also use AI to protect their athletes; by analyzing video of a player’s movements, the system can spot tiny changes that signal a future injury, allowing coaches to rest them early.

Formula 1

F1 is not called an engineer’s heaven for no reason. Teams are using cloud-based AI to run nearly four billion strategy simulations during a single Grand Prix weekend. These models process over a million data points per second from 300+ onboard sensors to predict tire degradation and fuel consumption, while also using AI-enhanced ‘Digital Twins’ to test aerodynamic car designs without needing a physical wind tunnel.

Golf

AI is making golf easier to play by acting like a high-tech coach and a master engineer. First, companies like Callaway use AI to design “smart" golf clubs. By analyzing millions of different swings, the AI creates a club face that helps the ball fly straight and far, even if you don’t hit it perfectly in the center.

Second, AI apps now act as a ‘Digital Caddy’ on your phone. These apps look at the wind, how hilly the ground is, and your past performance to tell players exactly which club to use for their next shot.

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