The Language of AI in Sports: Athletes’ Perspectives on AI-Driven Coaching Technologies

Abstract

The research aims to explore athletes' (of various games) perceptions and opinions about AI-driven coaching. The objective is to know its benefits, challenges and suggestions. The researcher identified the significant themes in the discourse to find answers to the questions. The researcher administered the following two questions: RQ1. How do athletes perceive the impact of AI-driven coaching technologies on their training effectiveness, program personalization, and overall performance? RQ2. What are the experiences and challenges faced by athletes when using AI-powered coaching tools, and how do these tools influence their motivation, feedback, and training outcomes? The researcher selected a sample population of 200 athletes from various games. The researcher selected corpus data through semi-structured interviews. The study used a thematic analysis technique to explore the key themes and subthemes related to the experiences of selected athletes. The researcher identified five major themes during the process of conducting interviews and asking semi-structured, open-ended questions. Athletes employed mixed tones: they responded initially about its benefits and then about its drawbacks. Finally, they provided suggestions for its improvement and offered future recommendations. The study suggests that such AI-driven coaching should be customized, incorporating the opinions of both athletes and their respective coaches. This research added the perspective that athletes should not rely solely on technology or a human coach but rather on a combined approach of both for better results. The study also found that technology often lacks personal and emotional connection, as well as concerns about data privacy. The study suggests that technology developers should collaborate to create a more user-friendly interface, one that maintains privacy and allows technology and human coaches to work freely without stress. Future developments should have made in AI-driven coaching software based on coaches' and athletes' opinions. The research suggests that future researchers may conduct more organized research work, and they may expand the circle of athletes and the number of games to achieve more comprehensive, as well as generalized, results, preferably through longitudinal research.

Keywords: AI-driven coaching, Athletes, Coaches, Perception and Opinions of athlete, corpus, Technology.