The scan takes a second. The player stands in front of the cameras, the system records his body measurements and creates a three-dimensional model that will represent him throughout the tournament. This one-second step is one of the less visible, and perhaps most important, pieces of the technological puzzle that FIFA and Lenovo have prepared for the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada.<\/p>
Artificial intelligence in sports is nothing new. Premier League clubs have been paying for advanced analytics for years, national teams from wealthy federations maintain large analyst teams, and match broadcasts are packed with statistics calculated by algorithms. The change signaled by the 2026 World Cup is different. For the first time, comparable tools will be made available to all participants in a single tournament regardless of budget, and a single provider is responsible for the technological backbone of the entire event.<\/p>
During the Tech World event dedicated to innovation, Lenovo and FIFA announced that the company has become the federation\u2019s official technology partner in the highest sponsorship category. The agreement covers the FIFA World Cup 2026 and the FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup 2027.<\/p>
The scope of this partnership goes well beyond logos on advertising boards. Lenovo will provide FIFA with technology end to end, from AI-powered solutions and devices to data center infrastructure. It\u2019s about improving both the fan experience and broadcast quality worldwide, as well as advancing the sport itself. Lenovo will provide the tournament\u2019s technological foundation, support intelligent operations, and bring the excitement of sport to a broader audience.<\/p>
In this model, artificial intelligence isn\u2019t a single gadget showcased in a TV studio, but a layer embedded in every operational aspect of the event, from teams\u2019 tactical analysis and the work of referees to fans\u2019 navigation between stadiums.<\/p>
The biggest attention-grabber is Football AI Pro, developed jointly by FIFA and Lenovo and built on the Lenovo AI Factory platform. It’s a specialized tool for soccer-related interactions that coordinates the work of multiple agents, searches through millions of data points from various sources, and analyzes more than two thousand different indicators to quickly deliver actionable insights. Responses come in the form of text, video, charts and 3D visualizations, and the system supports multiple languages. An important caveat: Football AI Pro is for pre- and post-match analysis and doesn’t operate during live play.<\/p>
The tool is designed for three user groups. Analysts can compare teams’ patterns of play using video clips and 3D avatars that present data in an accessible, visual form. Coaches can test how their tactical adjustments would fare against a specific opponent in the upcoming match. Players receive individual, personalized analyses of their own match performances.<\/p>
This is exactly where the line is drawn between Lenovo and the rest of the market. Football AI Pro provides unprecedented access to data, analyses and insights to every coach, player and tournament analyst, while safeguarding privacy. So all participants will benefit from AI, not just those who could afford their own team of data scientists. At the highest level, the quality of analysis usually depends on a team’s resources, and this tool is designed to reduce that inequality.<\/p>
One of the most noticeable innovations of the 2026 World Cup will be the use of digital avatars in officiating technology and broadcasts. Every tournament participant will be scanned. Based on 3D assets and GenAI technology, a three-dimensional avatar will be created for them, faithfully reproducing individual physical characteristics. The models are intended to streamline referees’ work and, in 3D animations, especially during offside replays, give fans in stadiums and watching on screens a clearer view of contentious on-field situations. The solution has already been tested at the FIFA Intercontinental Cup, where players from Flamengo and Pyramids FC were scanned.<\/p>
Following the successful pilot at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025, Referee View is also returning. Thanks to this solution, over six billion fans around the world will gain access to the same on-field perspective the referee has. Lenovo’s AI-powered image stabilization will significantly improve image quality, enable broadcasters to air in new formats and give viewers a new experience of watching the game through the referee’s eyes.<\/p>
Lenovo also provides reliable infrastructure and hardware to support FIFA and its VAR technology provider, Hawk-Eye Innovations. Here too, the starting point was the proven deployment from the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.<\/p>
Lenovo’s artificial intelligence doesn’t stop at the field. The heart of the tournament’s operations system will be the Intelligent Command Center, which will provide FIFA with daily, in-depth reports and real-time visibility into how the event is unfolding. This gives organizers a time advantage: emerging trends and challenges become visible early enough to respond.<\/p>
The second pillar of the operational layer is Lenovo Smart Wayfinding. The solution will connect the entire tournament, enabling interactive exploration of host cities, fan zones, venues and key attractions. Thanks to real-time venue intelligence and AI-powered navigation, participants will navigate the tournament intuitively and seamlessly.<\/p>
To appreciate the scale of what FIFA and Lenovo have prepared, it’s worth looking at what’s been happening in sports over the past few years.<\/p>
Officiating has changed most noticeably. Semi-automated offside technology has already been used at Euro 2024 and the 2025 Club World Cup, among others. According to data cited within the industry, it has reduced the average time for offside checks from about 70 to about 23 seconds. The Premier League, in cooperation with PGMOL and Genius Sports, has launched its own variant of this technology.<\/p>
Data analysis is the second area. The German Bundesliga, according to Amazon Web Services, processes over 3.6 million events during each match and provides fans with a dozen or so Match Facts metrics, ranging from goal probability to shot speed. The NFL, also with AWS, analyzes more than 500 million data points per season. The third area is player health, where platforms analyzing training loads and biometric data detect injury risk before it sidelines a player.<\/p>
But the common denominator of these solutions is simple: until now they’ve most often functioned as a paid advantage, available to those who could afford the equipment, data and a team of analysts. Most companies provide just one layer of technology, whether it’s data, wearables or broadcast solutions. Lenovo’s contribution is to connect the entire chain, from servers and data centers to end devices and software, into a single operating system for the event, and to write equal access into the very rulebook of one of the world’s largest sporting events.<\/p>
The strategy Lenovo pursues at the national team level has a counterpart much closer to everyday life. Football AI Pro is often described as a combination of Lenovo’s “Smarter AI for All” slogan and FIFA’s “Football Unites the World” vision. The same premise, that is, to make the tool available and teach people how to use it, underpins the brand’s initiatives aimed at everyday users.<\/p>
You can already see it at the hardware level. Lenovo\u2019s entire chain ends with the laptop, and the Yoga and Legion lines have on-device AI-supported features: in Aura Edition models, modes that automatically optimize application performance; in Legion devices, performance-optimization mechanisms managed by the Legion Space software. At Tech World during CES 2026, Lenovo also showcased Qira, a contextual intelligence operating across the company\u2019s entire device ecosystem. It\u2019s the same idea as at the World Cup, just on a different scale.<\/p>
But hardware alone isn’t enough if the user doesn’t know how to leverage its capabilities. Hence the Polish version of the strategy: with the purchase of select Yoga and Legion laptops, Lenovo includes one year of access to the CampusAI educational platform, valued at PLN 1,300 and covering dozens of courses on artificial intelligence, ranging from working with text and images to automation and creating AI assistants. The logic is the same as at the tournament. Football AI Pro bridges the gap between richer and poorer national teams; CampusAI aims to close the gap between having the technology and knowing how to use it.<\/p>
Still, the picture isn\u2019t entirely rosy. A digital scan of each player is a collection of highly detailed information about their body, so questions about who owns it and how long it’s stored are still worth asking. FIFA and Lenovo emphasize that Football AI Pro provides access to data while safeguarding privacy, but the details of these protections will likely only become clear in practice.<\/p>
Some commentators also wonder whether additional layers of technology are stripping soccer of something essential, evoking the controversies VAR has sparked for years. A faster, more accurate decision is valuable, but not every fan wants to watch a match mediated by a replay screen. Finally, predictive models can be opaque, so the more coaching staffs base their decisions on their outputs, the more important it becomes to remember that the tool is meant to support humans, not replace their judgment.<\/p>
The 2026 World Cup will likely be the first tournament where AI steps out of the TV studio and becomes the backbone of the event’s overall organization. FIFA says that over time some of the analyses will also be made available to fans, and the 2027 Women’s World Cup will be the next stage of the collaboration. If the promise of equal access is kept, it will change not only how soccer is watched, but also who can use tools previously reserved for the wealthiest.<\/p>
To take advantage of the offer, you must purchase an eligible Lenovo laptop included in the offer by May 31, 2026, and keep the proof of purchase. The application form must be completed within 14 calendar days of the purchase date; after successful verification and approval of the submission, an email is sent with an activation code for the CampusAI platform, the activation of which provides one year of access to the platform’s resources. The list of products included in the promotion is available on the campaign website, and the serial number can be found on the packaging or in the system settings, therefore it’s necessary to prepare a photo of the proof of purchase and the serial number.<\/p>
The offer is available at the Lenovo & Motorola Showroom in Warsaw (Powsta\u0144c\u00f3w Warszawy Square 9, entrance from \u015awi\u0119tokrzyska Street) and at partners: Delkom, eLenovo, Komputronik, Media Expert, Media Markt, Morele, Neonet, RTV Euro AGD, Sferis, X-Kom. Terms and offer details are available on the dedicated page.<\/mark><\/a><\/p> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the 2026 World Cup, artificial intelligence is no longer an add-on to the tournament and becomes its technological foundation. Advanced analytics is also no longer a privilege of the wealthiest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":354,"featured_media":18660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[803],"tags":[],"popular":[],"difficulty-level":[],"ppma_author":[776],"class_list":["post-18940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-and-technology"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":776,"user_id":354,"is_guest":0,"slug":"redakcja","display_name":"Redakcja","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Zrzut-ekranu-2025-07-10-o-16.00.36.png","url2x":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Zrzut-ekranu-2025-07-10-o-16.00.36.png"},"first_name":"","last_name":"","user_url":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18941,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18940\/revisions\/18941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18940"},{"taxonomy":"popular","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/popular?post=18940"},{"taxonomy":"difficulty-level","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/difficulty-level?post=18940"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=18940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}