The All England Lawn Tennis Club is adding new AI-powered features to Wimbledon’s digital platform through its ongoing work with IBM.
Updates will be available via the Wimbledon app and wimbledon.com as first round matches begin on Monday. These include an upgraded Match Chat assistant and a new feature called Key Moments.
This feature will also be available through IBM Slamtracker, which can be accessed through the Wimbledon app and wimbledon.com.
CIO.inc reported that approximately 730 million people attended Wimbledon last year, generating 18 billion impressions across digital channels, according to AELTC’s comments on the IBM Media Panel.
IBM said its work with Wimbledon is part of a five-year digital transformation project focused on modernizing its digital platform, bringing critical services and data in-house, and reducing technical debt and cost of ownership.
IBM said the initiative aims to enable an AI operating model and improve productivity for Wimbledon teams.
Match Coverage gets AI tools
Match Chat allows fans to ask questions about the match in natural language. Users can ask what has happened so far in a match and receive conversational responses based on live data, analytics, and historical performance information.
Some Match Chat responses include related photos and videos. IBM says this feature will allow users to search for stats or ask questions without having to jump between multiple screens during a match.
IBM says Match Chat is built on WatsonX Orchestrate and uses AI agents and models trained on Wimbledon editorial style and tennis terminology. The assistant uses live match data, analytics, and past performance information, and some responses include relevant photos and videos.
A 2025 technical document on Match Chat reports that early deployments at Wimbledon and the US Open served approximately 1 million users and had an average response time of 6.25 seconds. IBM says the 2026 version will add expanded data sources and selected answers, including photos and videos.
The new Key Moments feature identifies points and passages of play that influence the direction of the game. Use AI-powered analysis to explain key plays and momentum shifts.
Key Moments builds on Wimbledon’s existing Win Potential feature. This tool uses current and historical statistics, expert opinion, and match momentum to calculate each player’s probability of winning for the entire match.
IBM says Live Likelihood to Win combines scoring data, match statistics and expert analysis to continuously update the probability of winning for every single match. Key Moments builds on that system by identifying points and passages of play that influence the direction of the game.
Key Moments will be available for each Gentleman’s and Ladies’ singles match. IBM says the feature is aimed at explaining which plays influence the direction of the game and why, rather than just showing selected points.
According to IBM, key moments can identify instances such as long rallies or double faults when they affect the momentum of a match or the odds of winning.
Inside Wimbledon’s replatforming
The digital update follows an extensive modernization of Wimbledon’s app and website. As part of that work, Wimbledon’s content archive has been migrated to a new architecture covering over 15,000 digital assets.
The archive contains articles, videos, photos and metadata links used across Wimbledon’s digital services.
IBM says the platform uses watsonx Orchestrate for AI agents, IBM Bob for development work, and watsonx.data for data management across the hybrid cloud infrastructure. The redesigned app and website was also built on research into how fans, players, broadcasters, media and other groups use Wimbledon’s digital services.
IBM Bob was used to build knowledge graph mapping relationships across Wimbledon’s archives to support the new platform’s AI-driven workflows. As Computer Weekly reports, the tool examined nearly 15,000 online assets and learned how articles, photos, videos, and metadata were related.
According to IBM, the archive mapping task, which previously required months of work by four or five IBM experts, was completed in less than four weeks by one engineer. The targeted 15,000 assets were extracted in 47 minutes, but IBM said response times may vary depending on technical conditions.
Computer Weekly also reported that IBM Bob helped complete an estimated 10 years of development work in nine months when rebuilding Wimbledon’s app, website and content systems ahead of the 2026 championships.
Control, engagement, and history
CIO.inc reported that IBM and Wimbledon are also using governance controls for their AI capabilities. The design includes human-driven processes, explainability, confidence scoring, and checks aimed at reducing inaccurate output during real-world use, the report said.
Insider Sport separately reported that IBM Consulting pointed to a feature-wide watsonx governance layer with transparency measures and trust scores attached to the underlying data.
AELTC reported a 16% year-over-year increase in engagement across all platforms in 2025, and a 39% increase in myWIMBLEDON registrations over the past year.
IBM and the All England Club have worked together for more than 35 years. The partnership between the two companies has covered Wimbledon’s website, mobile app and AI-powered digital services.
IBM said the partnership includes the launch of the Wimbledon website in 1995, the launch of a mobile app in 2009 and the first integration of an enhanced AI-powered solution in 2017.
(Photo provided by Gonzalo Facello)
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