Speaker
Richard Felton-Thomas
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Each Premier League scout can only assess about 2,000 players per year, despite millions playing the game globally.
AI Scout uses computer vision to analyze 22 key body segments from smartphone footage, extracting metrics like speed, symmetry, and jump height.
A 17-year-old named Ben, who lived minutes from Chelsea FC's training ground, had never been scouted until AI Scout identified him as exceptional.
After being discovered by AI Scout, Ben got a trial at Chelsea FC, scored on his under-18 debut, signed for another Premier League club, and represented his country.
Reliance Foundation's partnership with AI Scout sees tens of thousands of Indian kids submit trials every year via WhatsApp-distributed app links.
One Indian player downloaded AI Scout from a shared community phone, had never played organised sport, and earned a 5-year scholarship through the app.
Using AI Scout on tablets in Senegal, 40 young athletes were identified from thousands of participants and are now being trained for the Youth Olympics.
MLS Next has rolled out AI Scout to 45,000 youth players, who are tested three times per year — preseason, midseason, and postseason.
Hundreds of athletes discovered through AI Scout's partnership programmes have gone on to play professional sport.
Reliance Foundation awards 5-year scholarships covering sport training and free education to the best young talent identified through their AI Scout partnership.
AI Scout converts standard 2D smartphone footage into inferred 3D movement data, enabling lab-grade biomechanical analysis from any phone.
AI Scout is free to download, removing cost as a barrier for young athletes who want to be evaluated globally.
The founding idea behind AI Scout was radical simplicity: take the same protocols used in elite sports labs — the sprints, the jumps, the movement analysis — and put them in a free smartphone app. Any kid, anywhere, could then be assessed with the same rigour as an academy player.
Ben was a 17-year-old who was head and shoulders above 49 college-age players in early AI Scout testing. He lived minutes from Chelsea FC's training ground — one of the world's best academies. The system had completely missed him. AI Scout didn't. He got a trial, scored on his under-18 debut, signed for another Premier League club, and represented his country.
Reliance Foundation's talent ID program used to send scouts out to find the best 11-year-old talent for 5-year scholarships. Now, tens of thousands of kids trial each year through a WhatsApp-distributed AI Scout app — and the best performers are invited to in-person selection days. One player downloaded the app from a shared community phone, had never played organised sport, and won a scholarship.
MLS Next has rolled out AI Scout to 45,000 youth players in the US, assessed three times per year — preseason, midseason, and postseason — so coaches can track development over time. Scouts and coaches get all the data in real time via a transparent control centre.
AI Scout analyzes 22 key body segments from standard phone footage and can convert 2D video into inferred 3D movement data. It measures direction, turning, jump height, speed, symmetry, and coordination — all processed in the cloud, meaning the phone itself needs no special hardware.
When the IOC realised Senegal's national teams didn't have enough talent to fill Youth Olympics rosters, they turned to AI Scout. School teachers and military leaders recorded children doing drills on tablets. From thousands of kids, 40 were identified and are now training for the Youth Olympics in sports like wrestling, athletics, and football.
When AI.io asked Chelsea FC and Burnley FC scouts which player they preferred, they could choose — but couldn't explain why. The team had to sit with scouts, decode their intuition, and translate it into a scoreable algorithm. That algorithm then processed thousands of videos to build benchmarks across age and gender.
The movement primitives underlying AI Scout — the cut, the jump, the throw, the deceleration — translate across sports. AI.io is now building movement libraries for American football, basketball, baseball, and cricket, while also exploring at-home healthcare applications. Multi-language and multi-cloud rollouts are under way.
Each Premier League scout can only see around 2,000 players per year, out of millions who play the game. Geography, cost, and access mean most talent never gets a look — and social media algorithms aren't the answer either, because they were never designed to find athletes.
AI Scout doesn't just help you trial for the sport you play — it can work in reverse, telling you which sport you'd be best at based on your movement data. Great acceleration and reactive strength might point to rugby sevens; upper body power and hand-eye coordination might mean baseball or softball.
Analysis
What they talk about
- Sports 67%
- Technology 33%
