Now, the technology IBM brings to these events feeds not only its marketing but its future event participation. This year at Wimbledon, for example, more than two and a half million people watched IBM’s AI-generated commentary videos. More than 10 million visitors hit Wimbledon’s various platforms—apps, website, etc.—with Syken noting that more than 85% used at least one feature: Engaging with the draw, checking out the Power Index, looking at the AI commentary and player fact sheets.

“We’re always trying to bring something new to the Open every year,” Adashek said. “We co-create with the USTA—looking at the data and understanding what people are looking for—and AI is helping us understand the data and what the opportunity is out there.”

Given the pace of technological growth and innovation, Adashek noted that it’s been helpful for IBM to show clients that they’ve been using generative AI at events like the U.S. Open for a few years. IBM doesn’t have a consumer branch of its business, so the Open and other events provide clients one of their few chances to see how products like watsonx work in the field and ask how they might apply to other businesses. 

It may take a week or so for those clients to relay that information to the rest of their team, but seeing a product function without fail during an event packed with more than 800,000 people during intermittent rainstorms results in strong word of mouth—and trust. 

“From a b-to-b marketing standpoint, they’re just real-life case studies that our clients can relate to,” Syken said, adding the USTA, the Masters and more are all businesses that have to grow revenue, please customers and present new capabilities. “And they all have the same technology challenges as more traditional businesses.”