Jeremy Bloom, a former University of Colorado wide receiver and Olympic skier, is revolutionizing the sports world with groundbreaking artificial intelligence technology. Bloom recently announced the launch of The Owl AI, a platform designed to “bring unprecedented fairness, transparency, and immersion to the global sports ecosystem.”
Based in Boulder, Colorado, The Owl AI has already garnered significant attention from major professional sports leagues in the United States. Bloom’s venture into AI began when he was named CEO of the X Games in December. He collaborated with Google to create the first AI judge, which was introduced at the X Games in Aspen in January.
“We had other leagues reaching out to us and saying, ‘Hey, you know, we’d love to look at this technology and think about how we could apply it,'” Bloom explained in an interview. “So it became pretty obvious that this was a bigger use case than just the X Games.” The Owl AI is currently in talks with “one of the big conferences” in college sports, according to Bloom.
Bloom’s background in both sports and technology made him the ideal candidate to lead this innovation. He played football at CU in 2002-03 and was a World Cup moguls skier, representing the United States in the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics. After returning to the sports world in December, Bloom reached out to Google co-founder Sergey Brin to develop the world’s first AI judge.
“I wanted to do that because I experienced firsthand as an athlete competing at the highest level in subjective sports,” Bloom said. “There’s a panel of judges (in skiing), and in football, there are referees. And sometimes you get it wrong.” Bloom cited high-profile missed calls in NFL playoff games and at the Monaco Grand Prix as examples of where technology can make a difference.
The Owl AI technology was developed over six weeks with Josh Gwyther, who left Google to lead the project. Bloom raised $11 million in funding through just three phone calls to investors. “I think AI will be ubiquitous across every live sport over the next five years,” Bloom predicted. “Whether they use our technology or somebody else’s, I think you’ll have to.”
The Owl AI platform offers various features beyond judging, including AI commentating in multiple languages and providing coaching tips by analyzing athlete footage. This week, Owl AI will launch its commentating feature at the Summer X Games in Salt Lake City, allowing fans worldwide to watch in their native languages.
Bloom and Gwyther plan to tap into local talent, hiring recent CU graduates and offering internships to CU students. “I really want to lean into local talent,” Gwyther said. “I would love to fill this office with engineers local in Boulder, which would be amazing and kind of reignite the startup community here in Boulder, too.”
