Innovations at Milano Cortina 2026 include AI everywhere and drones.
From first-person drones that will race alongside the athletes to AI-powered replays that freeze images mid-air, the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics are going to showcase many technologies.
Organisers say tech will radically change how fans watch the events from their televisions, through AI-powered chatbots, or by scrolling on social media. Other new innovations bring more digital support for athletes and a closer look at how the torches work.
Here’s a look at the key tech that will define the upcoming Winter Games.
AI and drones integrated into Olympic broadcasts
The Milano-Cortina Games will have a “very intense” use of first-person drones (FPV) that will follow athletes at close range, said Yiannis Exarchos, CEO of the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), in a media briefing last week.
While drones were first introduced at the Olympics during the 2014 Sochi Games, Exarchos says the technology has evolved since then. In Italy, drones will, for the first time, take viewers down a luge track, capturing the sport’s speed and intensity in real time.
The goal is that viewers feel like they are on the track with the athletes, Exarchos said.
“What we’ve got now is a new generation of technology that really allows for a safe use of drones that go very close to the action,” Exarchos said. “You will be seeing images that we have not seen before in how these sports are covered.”
OBS is embedding artificial intelligence (AI) into Olympic replays. The broadcaster’s AI-assisted technology can generate 260-degree videos of athletes “in seconds” by combining footage from multiple camera angles, Exarchos said.
In a demonstration video from OBS, a skier’s mid-jump is frozen in the air while the AI generates instant freeze frames of how their position changes while they finish the jump.
On-screen graphics then display data such as jump height, airtime and landing speed, giving viewers a deeper insight into how the athletes perform.
The enhanced replays will be cut into virtual reality (VR) videos for social media platforms such as YouTube, according to the Games’ guide.
AI-driven visuals will support other sports, such as curling. The technology will track the stone’s trajectory, speed, and landing position. It will also show the sweeping frequency as the stone travels across the ice.
An interactive online Olympic experience
For the first time, the official Olympics website will feature a built-in AI assistant capable of answering questions about the Games and delivering real-time results.
Unlike other AI chatbots, Exarchos said their AI assistant does not draw from “random” internet sources. Instead, he said it was trained on “unbiased, accurate” Olympic data.
The Games’ website will introduce AI-powered highlights and article summaries, which will give fans a quick, clear overview of the key Olympic stories and will help them decide what to watch or read next, Exarchos said.
