Giving Voice to the FIBA Basketball World Cup Mascot Through AI
FIBA is a global governing authority for basketball that represents 212 National Basketball Federations around the world and organizes and oversees international competitions, including the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 and Olympic Basketball Tournaments.
FIBA brings together a vast community of 450 million players and fans, fostering a solid global basketball community.
The Challenges
◉ FIBA aimed to give their mascot a voice and enable real-time fan interactions in 5 languages.
◉ They needed a conversational AI agent capable of delivering fast and accurate FIBA World Cup information.
◉ The goal was to improve fan experience by making tournament details easily accessible.
◉ They wanted the agent to reach and engage as many users as possible through notifications.
◉ Key updates included real-time news such as MVP announcements and favourite team progress after each match.
Our Solution *
Our Solution *
Meet JIP — a basketball robot named by the initials of its co-hosting nations: Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines. JIP's mission is to foster global unity, bringing people together under the banner of basketball.
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Thanks to the GPT foundation, JIP has rapidly learned to communicate in multiple languages. As a result, it provides fans and visitors with the freedom to pick their preferred language for the conversation. You can choose from a range of options, including English, Japanese, Indonesian, French, and Spanish.
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JIP is seamlessly integrated with FIBA's API, ensuring he could provide accurate and timely data within seconds. This includes frequently changing updates to the schedule, scores, teams, players, and venue information.
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JIP is really good at understanding natural language questions and giving you meaningful answers. JIP knows a lot about the FIBA competition and can handle a wide range of questions about the World Cup 2023. For example, JIP knows quite a bit about the history of the Basketball World Cup – he can tell you how the tournament works, its history, and some interesting facts. He's knowledgeable about the teams, the best players, the groups, the leaders, and much more. Plus, JIP has a personality – he identifies himself as a basketball robot!
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Operating within a continuous stream of data, JIP efficiently manages multiple concurrent user requests while maintaining a high level of performance.
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The agent was built to allow updates and fixes to JIP’s functionality without any coding. Velocity handled all aspects of development and provided ongoing support throughout the project.
Additionally, analytics enabled FIBA to identify the most popular topics and concerns among fans based on the questions and issues they raised with JIP.
The Results
◉ Within two weeks, the JIP widget engaged 73,000+ basketball fans.
◉ FIBA noted the agent delivered strong user satisfaction and adoption.
◉ Many users were curious about JIP and the importance of recycling.
◉ 71.51% of users completed interactions without natural language understanding.
◉ The agent also supported promotions and lead generation—driving users to explore info, subscribe, and check match results.
“Velocity’s proactive approach to addressing potential issues and their responsiveness to our feedback demonstrated their dedication to ensuring a smooth project journey. We were genuinely impressed by Velocity’s project management expertise and their dedication to ensuring our satisfaction with project delivery.”
- Digital Product Manager @FIBA