The All England Lawn Tennis Club, the organization that hosts the annual Wimbledon tennis tournament, partnered with technology provider IBM, a vendor that has supplied digital systems to the event for more than 35 years, to overhaul its digital infrastructure ahead of the 2026 competition running from June 29 to July 12.
The infrastructure upgrade introduces artificial intelligence models from IBM to power new interactive features on the official website and mobile application. The modernization project focused on migrating historical data and deploying automated tools to answer user queries during live matches.
To execute the platform redesign, engineers utilized an artificial intelligence development accelerator called IBM Bob. The tool built a knowledge graph to map content relationships and workflows for the digital archive of the tournament. This system extracted 15,000 digital assets, which included articles, photographs and videos, alongside their connecting metadata. A single engineer completed the mapping process in four weeks, a task that required a team of four to five IBM specialists working for months under prior methods. The actual extraction of the 15,000 assets concluded in 47 minutes.
The backend overhaul supports two new user-facing applications built on the watsonx Orchestrate framework, accessible via the IBM Slamtracker interface. The first feature, Match Chat, allows users to submit natural language queries to an automated assistant. The system processes live match data and historical performance information to generate conversational responses, which incorporate relevant photographs and videos. The second application, Key Moments, operates alongside an existing probability model. This tool analyzes current statistics and match momentum to explain the specific plays that influence the direction of gentlemen’s and ladies’ singles matches.
“It's our priority every year to remain at the pinnacle of sport and deliver the best possible guest experience of The Championships – both to those walking through the gates of Wimbledon and the hundreds of millions following the action digitally around the world,” added Usama Al-Qassab, Marketing and Commercial Director at the All England Club. The organization reported a 16 percent year-on-year increase in engagement across all platforms in 2025, supported by a 39 percent growth in registered myWIMBLEDON accounts.
“Our partnership with the All England Club extends far beyond delivering match scores and statistics for the website and app,” says Jonathan Adashek, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM. “The new fan experiences, combined with the modernization of Wimbledon’s platforms using IBM watsonx and IBM Bob, are an example of how organizations can use AI not only to deepen engagement, but also to accelerate innovation and unlock new levels of operational efficiency.”
