Yiannis Exarchos, managing director of Olympic Broadcasting Services and executive director of Olympic Channel Services, says much of that technology had never been used in sports before. Both organizations are responsible for producing the majority of television, radio and digital coverage and content on Olympics.com. “At Milano Cortina, people will have unprecedented experiences,” says Exarchos.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Drone view of athlete performance
Milano Cortina One of the big technologies coming to the Olympics are first-person view, or FPV, drones. Exarchos explains that these radio-controlled aircraft broadcast images from their onboard cameras in real time to “provide a dynamic perspective on the race track.”
This year’s games will be the first to offer 360-degree real-time replays. Introduced as part of a collaboration with Alibaba, the system uses multi-camera replay systems and stoboscopic analysis to often capture multi-angle views, freeze frames and slow-motion images of an athlete’s incredible moves.
Another first is a new tracking system for turning the stones. “It will be possible to see the path, speed and rotation of each stone in real time,” explains Exarchos. Suspended rail cameras and snow-level views will help spectators better understand the game, as well as detailed stone trajectory graphics and real-time data.
Olymp’s new AI tool: Olymp GPT
Have a question about this year’s games? Olympic GPT is here to help. The bot specializes in creating content for the Olympic.com website. It will provide real-time results and information on sports rules, and, for the first time, the ability to interact with questions about the results of ongoing competitions.
“The artificial-intelligence-based article summaries on Olympics.com will give fans a quick and clear overview,” Exarchos says. “They highlight key points to help users decide what to search for next, while also improving accessibility and reading from mobile devices.”
virtual video production
For the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, most video production will be moved to the cloud. Virtual Outside Broadcasting (OB) vans will help decentralize the process of bringing images from events to fans’ screens. Organizers say using virtual cloud infrastructure helps reduce energy consumption by about 50 percent and enables remote production for events such as curling and speed skating.
Everything will be completely managed through a cloud-based master control room that was recently tested at the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia in January. There, space savings compared to the previous championship were 75 percent, while energy consumption was reduced by 65 percent.
olympics big data moment
For this Winter Games, Olympic Broadcasting Services is also testing an automated description platform to help teams manage the sheer volume of video coming live during their events. “Artificial intelligence breaks down the broadcast into searchable clips, suggests shot descriptions and keywords, and helps users quickly find highlights, making storytelling faster and easier,” says Exarchos. The AI will then analyze traffic spikes on Olympics.com in real-time and identify the most valuable moments for fans.
This story originally appeared Wired Italia. It has been translated from Italian.
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