Former University of Colorado football player and Olympic skier Jeremy Bloom is launching groundbreaking artificial intelligence technology in the sports world.

On Wednesday, Bloom announced the launch of The Owl AI, an artificial intelligence platform designed to “bring unprecedented fairness, transparency, and immersion to the global sports ecosystem.” The company will be based in Boulder, where Bloom resides.

Named the CEO of the X Games in December, Bloom teamed with Google to create the first AI judge, and Owl was introduced at the X Games in Aspen in January. Other sports entities took notice, including major professional leagues in the United States, prompting Bloom and his team to go deeper with the Owl AI technology.

“We had other leagues reaching out to us and saying, ‘Hey, you know, we’d love to look at this technology and think about how we could apply it,’” Bloom said in an interview with the Daily Camera. “So it became pretty obvious that this was a bigger use case than just the X Games.”

Owl AI is also in talks with “one of the big conferences” in college sports, Bloom said.

Bloom, who is a seasoned tech entrepreneur, played football at CU in 2002-03 as a receiver and punt returner.

He was a sixth-round pick in the NFL draft by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2006.

Bloom was also a World Cup moguls skier who represented the United States in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. A three-time world champion, he was inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame in 2013.

When he returned to the sports world in December, he reached out to longtime friend Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google.

“I said, ‘Let’s go build the world’s first AI judge,’” Bloom said. “I wanted to do that because I experienced firsthand as an athlete competing at the highest level in subjective sports and seeing there’s a panel of judges (in skiing), and in football, there’s referees. And, look, sometimes you get it wrong. Sometimes you just make the wrong call.”

Bloom referenced some high profile missed calls in NFL playoff games and at the Monaco Grand Prix.

“These things happen a lot, and we’re finally to the point where technology can help solve this and bring objectivity to subjective sports,” Bloom said. “I think that’s a huge opportunity across a lot of different sports, so we wanted to test it at X Games.”

Bloom worked with Josh Gwyther, has been at Google for nine years, the last 3 1/2 running the AI teams. Gwyther and Bloom spent six weeks developing Owl AI before the X Games in January.

Gwyther, who is also based in Boulder, has now left Google to lead Owl AI. Bloom said he made three phone calls — to S32, Menlo Ventures and Susa Ventures — to raise $11 million in funds to back Owl AI.

“I think AI will be ubiquitous across every live sport over the next five years,” Bloom said. “Whether they use our technology or somebody else’s, I think you’ll have to. I think we’re well positioned to win some of those market opportunities. Some of those (major pro leagues) we’re in conversations with and building and beta testing, and hopefully in the next couple of months we’ll be able to announce some of those partnerships.

“But I absolutely believe that this technology, AI, will be ubiquitous across every sports league that’s out there, and not just from judging and refereeing.”

Bloom said Owl AI is an “incredible tool” for coaching because it can upload footage of an athlete and provide critique and tips.

The technology can also do AI commentating in various languages. That aspect will be launched this week at the Summer X Games in Salt Lake City, as fans in Japan, Brazil and other countries can now watch the games and hear commentary in their native language. With Owl AI being based in Boulder, Bloom and Gwyther said they hope to tap into the local talent, hiring recent CU graduates and offering internships to CU students.

“I really want to lean into local talent,” Gwyther said. “I would love to fill this office with engineers local in Boulder, which would be amazing and kind of reignite the startup community here in Boulder, too.

“I fully anticipate to be working with CU on bringing in talent to the organization.”