By Kyla Pugen

The roar of an ambitious crowd, the seemingly impossible catch, the disregarded underdog rising to victory—these are the moments that arguably define sports. Yet, a new force seems to quietly be taking part in the making of such moments from the sidelines. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has shifted from a novelty into a core aspect of athletics. 

While data has always been part of the game, the pivot to true AI use began to normalize around 2013. 

During this time the National Basketball Association began using in-arena ball and player tracking technology, which marked the beginning of modern basketball analytics. This continued with the National Football League launching the use of Next Gen Stats, which captured real-time, location-based data for every single play. 

A 2024 study found that the market for AI in sports reached over $1 billion, and as of 2026, it no longer is an experiment; it is key to how games are officiated and managed. In October, Calgary Flames head coach Ryan Huska admitted to using ChatGPT to help him understand his team’s shortcomings. 

As algorithms continue to advance, a fundamental question emerges—is the pursuit of perfection and overuse of AI stripping the “soul” from the game, or is it simply the ultimate tool for human enhancement?

Some athletes, like Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) softball shortstop/catcher Grayce Cooper, haven’t seen the integration of AI in their sport yet. AI is still at its beginnings with sports—2026 can expect to see more of its innovations and integration. 

From a student-athlete’s perspective, Cooper says “AI technology in sports is good and bad,” explaining that “in baseball, [teams] are using automatic balls and strike zones which would be helpful with the close strike zone, and in soccer they use [AI] to determine if people are offside or not.” 

Laurel Walzak is an associate professor of sport media at TMU and founder of the Global Experiential Sport Lab (GXSLab). She highlights the emerging technologies reshaping sports business and audience engagement. 

In her recent article for Maclean’s, Walzak explored the implementation of AI in games and how it has the potential to “improve fairness in judging, make talent discovery more consistent and update training regimens.” 

She also touches on how AI can combat human judgement to help identify the most physically talented amongst a group of athletes. Walzak explains how quarterbacks in American football “were overwhelmingly white…because entrenched systems and expectations shaped who scouts saw as a natural fit for the position,” and illustrates the objectivity AI could produce. 

One major concern regarding AI’s use in sports is that it will solve the game and take away its entertainment value. According to an article by Guillermo Alamán Requena for the Medium, If every offensive play is calculated, the game risks having two perfectly optimized teams that neutralize each other implying that this perfection “results in a more calculated and less spontaneous sporting experience.”

The National Hockey League declared its own stance on AI in the sport back in December by releasing an anti-AI ad that featured a handful of its top players, captioned “AI can do a lot of stuff, but it can’t do what our stars do nightly.” 

As Walzak points out, “Some governing bodies, particularly at tradition-oriented events like Wimbledon, worried that technology would erode the human element of officiating and the drama it provided.” 

The use of AI in sports is becoming increasingly more common. WSC Sports found that by mid-2025, three out of four teams across various sports were already integrating AI into their competitive operations. 

Already becoming a “template across elite sport,” Walzak explains that blending AI with human judges will allow for “greater accuracy, faster calls and fewer stoppages, with technology supporting referees rather than replacing them.”  

One AI creation that’s come out of AI is “digital twins”—extremely accurate virtual representations of physical objects, stadiums and even athletes. This technology was a large part of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. Digital twins were built for every competition venue which helped organizers’ planning processes years in advance. 

This technology also helps with athlete management. Different AI platforms, like Springbok Analytics, are using 3D visuals of athletes’ musculature to better understand them. This data is mainly used to try and predict injuries before they happen, which allows for more proactive and preventative athlete maintenance for sports and team organizations. The ability of a digital twin to indicate a high risk of injury poses the question of whether an athlete’s own sense of their body can still be trusted.

For Walzak, the solution to an ethical integration of AI in sport lies in a proper balance. “Across these sports, a common principle is emerging: let humans judge creativity, and let machines handle the technical facts,” she writes. Yet she reminds readers that “AI is not a moral actor,” and that without human oversight, these systems end up reinforcing the power structures they were meant to dismantle. “That is why human judgment should not disappear in AI-assisted scouting. Instead, AI can be used to make human judgment more visible and more accountable.” 

While some believe that the implementation of AI in the world of sports is revolutionary, enhancing athletic performance and benefitting fan engagement levels, there is a risk of AI overdependence. A recent study by ScienceDirect concluded that future research should focus on “creating global standards for AI regulation in sports.”

Though AI can help perfect all levels of the game, it is the human element that arguably makes sport fun. Technology can remain part of officiating and coaching but it is the spontaneity, imperfection and unpredictability that maintains the humanity of athletes, as mentioned in the Psychiatric Times.

As technology evolves and conversations about AI are shared, the world of sport continues to spin, and with it, the debate regarding AI’s place in it.