At Devoteam, we also participated in the Olympic Games. Devoteam experts were in the starting blocks four weeks before the opening ceremony. With an ambitious project: to deliver to the media L’Équipe, a daily podcast generated by AI which would cover the news of the Olympic Games
From prompt engineering to task automation, this podcast, called “2min chrono”, relies on Amazon Bedrock and the LLM Claude 3.5 Sonnet to generate text content based on articles and data from the sports media. The model collects, prioritises and summarises the highlights of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games before producing a news flash following the editorial line of L’Équipe.
Eleven Labs then generates the voice of the “presenter” to bring the podcast to life. Comments, summary of the previous day, podium chances, medal table: all the essential information is present in this 2-minute summary.
Interview with Raphaël Dardeau, CTO of L’Equipe.
What did the project bring to l’Equipe?
This project allowed l’Equipe to overcome some initial fears related to artificial intelligence—a fear that can be legitimate, of course, especially with the editorial staff. Today, we know that we are able to capitalise intelligently on these subjects. At first, there was reluctance, but the podcast idea quickly won the team over after listening to the first demos, which greatly facilitated the process.
Beyond the fears, we also realised that we can take on ambitious challenges with great responsiveness. We will undoubtedly be able to explore even more quickly in the future. The human aspect was also decisive; to lead a project with such tight deadlines, trust between the teams was essential.
How would you describe the collaboration with Devoteam on this project?
The collaboration was a real success. We worked hand in hand with Devoteam, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Eleven Labs to develop a daily podcast generated by artificial intelligence, a first for our team.
For a sports media like L’Équipe, the Olympic Games are a unique opportunity to innovate. During our first meeting with Devoteam, I felt great excitement and a very strong “desire to go.” This immediately gave me confidence. Beyond this fundamental aspect, the Devoteam team was always in action and extremely responsive. Adjustment requests were immediately, very quickly, applied and operational. The final result exceeded our expectations.
What impact did this project have on the team dynamic?
This project was a milestone for the team, who had previously struggled with another AI-based project for the Olympics. However, “2min chrono” has renewed confidence at all levels. Even if we still lack the perspective to assess all the opportunities this could open up, other projects of this type will certainly see the light of day. We simply need time to assimilate this experience and consider new initiatives.
The deadline for delivering this project was extremely tight. Did you have to adjust your work approach for this project?
To complete this project, a new way of working had to be adopted. The processes surrounding project monitoring were reduced to the bare minimum. It was about being efficient and constantly in action, which the Devoteam team managed to do brilliantly.
This project broke the mould of classic projects by immersing us in the agile mindset of yesteryear. Because of the freedom and speed of execution, we could deliver Proof of Concept in a few days.
Did the final result meet your expectations?
Absolutely. The result amazed many observers. A friend told me that he would have been unable to guess whether or not it was an AI that had made the podcast. The short two-minute format was ideally suited to the Olympics, but it still had to meet strict editorial constraints regarding tone, duration, and information priority. Several of our colleagues relayed the initiative, which probably piqued curiosity.
We met this challenge by optimising each decision-making process, and I am delighted with the result.
Conclusion
AI-generated podcast project for the Paris 2024 Olympics was a learning adventure. It demonstrated not only L’Équipe and Devoteam’s ability to innovate in the context of major sporting events but also the importance of solid human collaboration, where trust and speed of execution are paramount. This project is likely the first in a long series that will mark the evolution of our way of covering major sporting events.
We are excited to offer an additional audio offering thanks to generative AI to provide our listeners with unprecedented coverage of the Olympic Games. Without this technology, we would not have offered this service to our readers.
Emmanuel Alix, CDO L’Equipe
Key figures
Between 3000 and 5000 daily listeners of 2min chrono.
A peak of more than 10,000 listeners.
Less than 4 weeks to deliver the project.
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