IBM took their AI platform Watson to the Championships, Wimbledon. Watson held court, as Wimbledon’s first AI tennis pundit, with the ability to uncover unseen patterns and express insight about passion, stamina, ‘performance under pressure’, playing styles and the personality traits of the greatest tennis players.

Using this insight Pundit Watson inspired fans and interacted with journalists and professional tennis players – Marion Bartoli, Jamie Murray, Anne Keothavong and Martina Navratilova coming forward to be involved in a debate about what makes for a great tennis player.

This outdoors activation idea was at an international sporting event, the Wimbledon Championships, which reaches a global audience of 70m and as such we do not believe that there are any terms, references or context that will not be known by an international jury in this submission.

Digital posters at London’s Heathrow airport, banners and social media, including Facebook live videos, Daily Debates on Wimbledon.com and, articles on The Telegraph site, shared Pundit Watson’s insights and invited people to take part in the debate #WhatMakesGreat.

Pundit Watson continued to learn as the Championships progressed, using the debate to reveal further insight and react ‘in the moment’ to events, for example, debating the topics of stamina and passion during the five set epic match between Nadal and Muller, or linking to ‘performance under pressure’ during British Jo Konta’s last match.

From the second week of tournament, those who had engaged were re-targeted. Banners with the invitation to view a video to find out ‘how Pundit Watson did it’ and then banners re-targeting to IBM Marketplace webpages with deeper information on how Watson makes for great insights in a business context with the opportunity to trial selected Watson APIs.