TacticAI: The New AI Assistant Revolutionizing Soccer Tactics

Wednesday - March 20 2024, 13:47 UTC - 8 months ago

TacticAI is a new AI assistant developed by Google DeepMind that can suggest soccer tactics better than professional coaches. It uses predictive and generative AI models to analyze corner kicks and player data, with a success rate of over 90%. The system can also be applied to other sports, making AI a valuable tool for teams looking for a competitive edge.

Soccer teams are always looking to get an edge over their rivals. Whether it’s studying players’ susceptibility to injury, or opponents’ tactics—top clubs look at reams of data to give them the best shot of winning. And now, they might have a new tool in their arsenal to do just that.

Developed by Google DeepMind, TacticAI is a cutting-edge AI assistant that is set to revolutionize soccer tactics. By analyzing a massive dataset of over 7,000 corner kicks from one of the world's biggest soccer clubs, Liverpool FC, TacticAI can suggest strategies that are even better than those created by professional club coaches.

Corner kicks, rare instances in the game when teams can try out pre-planned plays, are a crucial aspect of soccer. And with the use of predictive and generative AI models, TacticAI is able to convert each corner kick scenario into a graph and analyze the data from each player to determine the best tactics for each situation. The groundbreaking approach was published today in Nature Communications.

Not only can TacticAI provide recommendations on where to position players during a corner to increase the chances of scoring a goal, but it can also predict the outcomes of a corner, such as whether a shot will take place or which player is most likely to touch the ball first. This not only gives teams an advantage on the field, but also helps reduce the workload of coaches by quickly identifying potential errors. Predictive models expert Ondřej Hubáček explains, "An AI system can go through the data quickly and point out errors a team is making—I think that’s the added value you can get from AI assistants." .

To test the effectiveness of TacticAI's strategies, Google DeepMind presented them to experts in the soccer industry, including data scientists, a video analyst, and a coaching assistant from Liverpool FC. The results were staggering, with the experts struggling to distinguish TacticAI's suggestions from real game play scenarios. In fact, they favored the AI assistant's strategies over existing tactics a whopping 90% of the time.

These findings not only showcase the potential of TacticAI in the world of soccer, but also suggest that it could be applied to other sports as well. Petar Veličković, a staff research scientist at Google DeepMind, says, "As long as there’s a team-based sport where you believe that modeling relationships between players will be useful and you have enough data, this approach can be easily applied to them." .

The use of AI in sports is becoming more and more prevalent as teams search for every possible advantage over their rivals. And with the success of TacticAI's revolutionary tactics, it's safe to say that AI will be a major player in the world of soccer and beyond.