Flashscore makes AI presenter AILA a permanent feature

Flashscore has made its AI presenter, AILA, a permanent part of its content operation following the avatar's debut during the World Cup.

AILA will now be used across product and editorial announcements, original shows and partnerships after an initial run in multilingual video output.

Developed with AI production studio Fameplay, AILA is designed to turn Flashscore's sports data-led journalism into localised, presenter-led video. During the World Cup, the avatar hosted Flashscore's Route 48 player profile series in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese and appeared in an app-download campaign across Latin America, Spain and France.

Flashscore is the flagship brand of Livesport, the Czech media and technology group. The wider business says it reaches more than 155 million monthly active users, while Flashscore itself reports more than 155 million monthly users and nearly 200 million app downloads.

Newsroom role

Flashscore positioned AILA as an addition to its editorial structure rather than a substitute for journalists and studio staff. The company has run its own sports news service since 2022 and publishes in 13 languages across 31 markets, reaching more than 20 million users each month with editorial and data-led content.

Its production system already includes automated and semi-automated elements. Match previews, for example, are prepared across languages in what Flashscore describes as a data newsroom, then published directly to match pages in all markets at the same time.

According to the company, AILA brings the same approach to studio video work. That allows a synthetic presenter to be deployed in multiple languages without requiring a live presenter in each market.

"Our newsroom reaches millions of people, and we built our own studios to enhance our content the way we want it," said Alan Záruba, Chief Digital Content Officer at Livesport.

"AILA is an extension of that, not a departure from it. We want to stay at the forefront of digital development and the AI-powered shift. When we briefed Fameplay on how to handle the concept of an AI digital avatar that could radically change how we scale our content, we wrote a single line to define the future AILA: she's built from numbers, but she speaks in stories," said Záruba.

How it was built

Fameplay said it developed AILA during 2025 using a hybrid production method. The movements and gestures were recorded from a real actress, while the face was generated synthetically and was not based on any identifiable person.

That structure addresses one of the more sensitive issues in the fast-growing synthetic media market: ownership and consent. Companies using AI-generated presenters have faced scrutiny over whether an avatar is derived from a real person's face and what rights are attached to that likeness.

In AILA's case, Flashscore said the design gives it full ownership under an unlimited-use licence while avoiding the use of a real individual's facial identity. It added that this should make the avatar easier to adapt across markets and formats.

"AILA was created by deliberately separating two distinct elements. The performance itself, the movement, facial expressions and on-screen presence, was licensed from a real actress. The face, however, was built entirely from scratch: fully synthetic and fully owned," said Lukáš Záhoř, Chief AI Producer and Co-Founder at Fameplay.

"That means there is no real person who can claim ownership of it, and nothing limits what it can do. AILA can speak in dozens of languages, across any format, at any time, without being constrained by the availability or limitations of a human performer," said Záhoř.

He contrasted AILA with other synthetic presenters on the market.

"Most synthetic presenters, by contrast, borrow a real person's face and simply hope no one asks who actually owns it. For Flashscore, we created an asset that will only become more valuable over time, not a deepfake that lasts only until the first lawsuit," said Záhoř.

Next uses

The first stage of AILA's expanded use will focus on three areas: product announcements and internal communications across territories, appearances in original television programming, and statistical explainer content created with Opta for football audiences.

That multilingual focus reflects the scale of Flashscore's network. The company says it operates more than 70 websites, covers 38 sports and serves users in more than 50 countries. Livesport has also expanded through acquisitions including BeSoccer, Soccerway, Tribal Football and OddsPortal.

For publishers, the launch points to a wider industry shift as news and content groups look for ways to produce more video for more markets without building equally large on-screen teams in each language. At the same time, companies adopting synthetic presenters are under pressure to show where automation ends and human editorial judgment begins.

Záruba said the project's internal scope had widened beyond its original concept.

"The idea of AILA started as a concept for an innovative TV programme we're currently working on, and it ended up as a virtual face we can point at almost anything - editorial, campaigns, product, partnerships," said Záruba.

"We already had a global pool - a highly effective, AI-powered newsroom - to scale our sports news across 31 countries. AILA opened up a completely new space for us and a range of possibilities for scaling our content even further," said Záruba.