Day two of the Barrett Media Audio Summit was a smashing success. As someone who has attended the sports summits over the years, I thought the retooled approach to this year’s event was a smart pivot. Instead of two days full of content, discussion, and networking, organizers embraced a less-is-more approach. However, one element of this year’s annual gathering of the best in sports media stood out more than anything else. It should have been predictable, but unfortunately, I forgot to ask my AI agent about it.
Woven throughout every conversation was the role AI plays in the industry’s evolving workflow. From sales and marketing to programming, video editing, prep sheets, and even the occasional email, AI surfaced in every panel throughout the day. That’s a far cry from where we were just a couple of years ago, when AI seemed like something off in the distance.
How did we get here so quickly? What happened over the past few years that caused the sports media business to move AI from the back burner to the forefront of nearly every conversation at the Barrett Media Audio Summit?
The answer is actually pretty simple. AI stopped being a futuristic concept and became a practical one because the sports media industry isn’t unlike any other business today.
Sports radio has always embraced tools that create efficiency. We moved from carts to digital automation, from fax machines to email, from tape editing to Adobe Audition, and from physical media kits to digital marketing campaigns. Every technological shift initially produced skepticism before eventually becoming standard operating procedure.