Olympic champion Shaun White says AI is ‘leveling the playing field’ for professional athletes

Olympic snowboarder Shaun White said he came from “pretty humble beginnings” without the same advantages as his rivals. The San Diego native didn’t live in the snowy mountains, and it was expensive to afford lift tickets, lodging, and food for a family of five growing up.

“You’re seeing athletes there with full-time coaches,” White told Fortune’s Andrew Nusca at Brainstorm Tech in Aspen this week. “I didn’t have that kind of access.”

But the emergence of new technologies, especially AI, has helped make it easier for athletes to have similar access to important resources to improve performance, even if some don’t have a full-time coaching team. 

“It is leveling the playing field in a way,” White said. “This is really going to be accessible for everyone…It’ll give a lot of information to athletes that wouldn’t have had this type of access before, and that’s really the hope.”

AI has already made it into the world of sports analytics. MLB debuted its Automatic Ball-Strike (ABS) system that allows players to challenge and overturn an umpire’s call at home plate. Similar automated line and boundary calls and........

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