Brazilian NOC amplifies administrative potential through responsible AI

At the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB), the use of artificial intelligence isn’t confined to talent identification and athlete performance alone.

Thanks to the Olympic AI Agenda, a strategic framework launched by the IOC in 2024 to facilitate the responsible integration of the technology across the Olympic Movement, its application is also being used to enhance management and administration capacity.

The launch in October 2025 of the NOCnet AI Assistant signalled a new era for the Olympic ecosystem. The operational search engine has enabled staff at the COB and all other NOCs to unlock the full potential of IOC content available to NOCs with the aid of process automation and smart tagging solutions.

“The impact on our daily work has been significant,” said Manoela Penna, Communications and Marketing Director at the COB. “Our communications, marketing and operations teams already use the assistant regularly, gaining agility, accuracy and more time for what really matters: creative strategy and an emotional connection with our fans and society.”

All NOCs have access to the AI Assistant. Available directly on NOCnet, the AI-powered chatbot helps users quickly and reliably find answers across three platforms: NOCnet, Athlete365, and Olympics.com.

The COB has one of the highest user rates globally, with some 130 staff members having already been onboarded. It was also heavily involved in the NOC Engagement Group established to guide the development of the AI Assistant. The group, composed of representatives from 14 NOCs and ANOC, set out to determine how AI could enable faster access to critical information, reduce search times, and improve operational efficiency.

By allowing staff to make better use of IOC resources through rapid access to trustworthy information and smarter, more intuitive guidance, the chatbot has already had a positive impact at the COB.

“We expected the NOCnet AI assistant to be a reliable, fast and accurate tool, capable of acting as an intelligent guide to our institutional knowledge, and that is exactly what we have received,” added Penna, who is a member of the NOC Engagement Group.

Supporting over 90 languages, the AI Assistant truly reflects the universality of the Olympic Movement.

The new tool provides NOCs with accurate and reliable information about the Olympic Movement and their roles and responsibilities within it, as its architecture is based on IOC-owned data previously verified by humans. The answers generated by the NOCnet AI Assistant are thereby more precise and relevant than those generated by popular AI assistants and large language models (LLMs).

As a generative AI tool, the text-only chatbot was not designed to create images for entertainment purposes, although image generation features are in the works.

It was also not designed to put anyone out of a job, a concern voiced by COB staff when they were first introduced to the different AI tools deployed by the NOC

“The most significant challenge we have faced has not been technical, but cultural,” explained IT Manager/Head of AI Initiatives Marcelo Santos, the person responsible for overseeing the implementation of AI at the COB. “Many employees initially expressed concern that AI could replace their roles, and this fear can lead to resistance rather than engagement.”

The NOC addressed the issue through consistent communication and training, emphasising the fact that AI tools such as the NOCnet AI Assistant are designed to support staff in their work, improve productivity and free up time for higher-value work. “Not to replace human judgement or expertise,” Santos stressed.

The AI Assistant is the first of many such tools in the Olympic pipeline. A suite of webinars, online courses and on-site sessions are scheduled for release in the coming months, while plans are also under way to roll out private AI assistants for NOCs to manage their own archives and resources.

With the introduction of the NOCnet AI Assistant in 2025 and more AI tools in the offering, the IOC is spearheading a new era of technical expertise for all Olympic Movement constituents. And as the COB and other NOCs have demonstrated, the responsible adoption of these new technologies can go a long way to amplifying human potential not only on the field of play but off it as well.