TED Talks Daily How AI is discovering athletes that human scouts miss | Richard Felton-Thomas
79 snips
Nov 5, 2025 
In this engaging talk, sports scientist Richard Felton-Thomas, co-founder of AI.io, reveals how AI is revolutionizing talent discovery in athletics. He discusses the limitations of traditional scouting methods and how geography can bias opportunities for aspiring athletes. Through the AI Scout app, Richard explains using biomechanics and computer vision to analyze sports performance via smartphones. He shares a success story of an overlooked player who secured a professional contract, showcasing the app's potential to uncover hidden talent globally.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Talent Is Universal, Visibility Is Not
- Talent exists everywhere but often goes unseen due to visibility barriers.
- Opportunity and visibility, not innate absence of talent, explain many geographic gaps in elite athletes.
Standardize Drills And Tailor Scores
- Standardize simple smartphone drills and analyze them with cloud-based computer vision to make talent comparable.
- Tailor scoring to each club's needs so scouts receive specific, actionable metrics rather than a one-size-fits-all rank.
Convert Scout Intuition Into Metrics
- Translate scouts' intuitive preferences into measurable features by asking them to compare players and explain choices.
- Build algorithms from those labeled judgments to create benchmarks by age and gender for fair comparison.