The All England Club’s 35-year IBM partnership adds a Key Moments tool and upgraded Match Chat, as both sides chase deeper digital fan engagement
IBM and the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) have unveiled a new suite of AI-powered fan features for The Wimbledon Championships 2026, headlined by a ‘Key Moments’ tool and an upgraded ‘Match Chat’ assistant.
Both run on IBM’s watsonx platform across a rebuilt Wimbledon app and website, available via IBM Slamtracker when the tournament runs from 29 June to 12 July.
New AI tools for the 2026 Championships
Key Moments builds on Wimbledon’s existing Likelihood to Win model, which calculates each player’s probability of victory from live and historical data, expert opinion and match momentum.
The new tool goes further, explaining which plays are shifting the direction of a match and why, and surfacing the standout moments across all 18 courts so fans following multiple matches do not miss a swing.
The enhanced Match Chat lets fans ask free-text questions, such as what has happened in a match so far, returning conversational answers now supplemented in places by photos and video. It is built on watsonx Orchestrate, drawing on AI agents and models trained on Wimbledon’s editorial style and the language of tennis.
“It’s our priority every year to remain at the pinnacle of sport and deliver the best possible guest experience of The Championships – both to those walking through the gates of Wimbledon and the hundreds of millions following the action digitally around the world,” said Usama Al-Qassab, Marketing and Commercial Director at the All England Club.
“Our technology partnership with IBM enables us to do just that, delivering meaningful experiences which harness the latest innovations to create richer ways to engage, inform and excite our global audiences.”
Asked at a pre-Championships briefing how an inaccurate AI-generated claim is caught before it reaches hundreds of millions of fans, Fred Baker, Associate Partner at IBM Consulting, pointed to a watsonx governance layer running across the features, with transparency measures and confidence scores attached to the underlying data.
“This isn’t any commentary, this is Wimbledon commentary,” he said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into governance, transparency and confidence scores on the data coming out, with checks and balances, so that what reaches the fan in real time is only going out if it meets high standards.”
When asked whether AI risks alienating more sceptical traditional fans, Al-Qassab said: “It’s about driving efficiency, effectiveness and engaging with different audiences.
“I’m not convinced it will alienate people, because what you’re able to do is create more bespoke, more meaningful content.”
IBM cited research with Morning Consult suggesting 85% of fans find AI useful in sport for translating data into something meaningful.
A platform rebuilt with IBM Bob
Underlining the fan tools is a full rebuild of Wimbledon’s digital platform using IBM Bob, an AI development accelerator.
IBM says it mapped and migrated more than 15,000 digital assets – articles, video, photography and metadata – in a job that would traditionally take four to five specialists several months, but was done by one engineer in weeks, with the asset transfer taking 47 minutes.
AELTC said the redesign, the first release of a five-year programme, was informed by research into how fans, players, broadcasters and media use its digital ecosystem.
“Our partnership with the All England Club extends far beyond delivering match scores and statistics for the website and app,” said Jonathan Adashek, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM.
“The new fan experiences, combined with the modernization of Wimbledon’s platforms using IBM watsonx and IBM Bob, are an example of how organisations can use AI not only to deepen engagement, but also to accelerate innovation and unlock new levels of operational efficiency.”
Asked by Insider Sport whether Wimbledon’s new digital tools compete with broadcasters such as the BBC – long the primary access point for UK audiences – or whether the different digital sources can be mutually supplementary, IBM’s Kameryn Stanhouse, Vice President of Global Sports and Entertainment Partnerships, said the relationship was additive rather than competitive.
“I don’t think it’s replacing it at all. It’s additive to the experience and helps broadcasters be more informed,” describing the app as a “broadcast assistant” that supplies the data and context broadcasters draw on to tell their story.
“Our broadcast numbers are going up year on year, in a world where many sports are seeing a decline in live broadcasts,” said Al-Qassab, noting a 16% year-on-year rise in engagement on Wimbledon’s owned-and-operated, IBM-powered platforms.
For him, radio, broadcast, catch-up, app, web, social and gaming are complementary touchpoints rather than rivals.
The IBM–AELTC tie-up runs to 36 years, from the Wimbledon website’s 1995 launch to the first AI-powered solutions in 2017, and the two have agreed a renewal that will extend the relationship towards 40 years.
In 2025, AELTC reported 39% growth in myWIMBLEDON registrations, with The Championships drawing more than 730 million engagements worldwide.
