Anna Szilagyi / EPA
Fans in Munich during Portugal-Spain, Nations League final
In addition to sports and entertainment, PluggableAI wants to take its technology to new sectors, such as education.
It’s been around for three years and wants to give another touch to football games or music festivals, for example: it’s called PluggableAI, is a Portuguese startup and wants to “make fan engagement simple, exciting and scalable”.
The Braga-based company wants to help clubs, brands, media outlets and event promoters connect with their audience in real time. To do this, it uses artificial intelligence (AI) and non-intrusive sensors.
“Imagine a football game: the fans are in the stands, supporting the team, celebrating a goal, complaining to the referee or cheering for a penalty, we we map this ’emotional anger’ throughout the game, in real time”, explains founder and director Bruno Fernandes, in .
A PluggableAI usa sensors of smartbands, smartwatches and smartphones — accelerometers, gyroscopes, light, temperature or proximity sensors. AI models look for patterns of behavior depending on the type of event.
The innovation detects moments of greatest energy directly: dances, jumps, claps or movements synchronized with the music or game.
And the application doesn’t stop at games: in a music festival“the audience is dancing, jumping, vibrating with the concert. That’s what we measure, emotional engagement”, describes Bruno.
“It makes sense in contexts where people are happy, emotionally connected to the club or the artist”, continues the CEO.
PluggableAI doesn’t want to stop at sports or entertainment; the startup wants to take its technology to new sectors, such as education: “We have a project that should start at the beginning of next year: using smartbands to understand how students react in different subjects (mathematics, physical education, etc.) and what emotional impact these classes have on student engagement.”
