NFL fans react to AI recreation of Al Michaels' voice for Olympics coverage - "This is so disrespectful," "Entirely emotionless"

Al Michaels, the popular NFL sportscaster, will reportedly provide coverage of the 2024 Olympics, albeit in an indirect manner, NBC announced. The company delivered the news on Wednesday that they will bring an AI-generated version of Michael's voice during their coverage.

Michaels called games for NBC from 2006-2021. In 2022, he became the full-time play-by-play announcer for Thursday night football, which is aired exclusively on Amazon Prime and Twitch.

NBC announced in a statement Wednesday that "Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock" will feature narrations from a 'high-quality' AI recreation of Michaels' voice.

Michaels told Vanity Fair on Wednesday that he was originally 'skeptical' about the proposal from the company. That was until he heard how accurate the AI version of himself was. Michaels said his cloned voice was only 2% off perfect.

While Michaels seems to like the idea, fans on social media don't seem to have the same opinion.

Many fans questioned why NBC/Peacock will be using an altered version of Michael's voice and questioned if he was okay to still call games.

"is bro ok why can’t he just do this himself," one fan questioned.

"isn't he still upright and alright?" another asked.

"I had to check to see if Al Micheals was dead or not. He’s not," one fan said.

Other fans expressed how they aren't fans of the company using an AI version of Michaels. Some think it's a terrible idea while others believe it's one step in the wrong direction for society.

Some fans even went to the extent of saying that they wouldn't be tuning into NBC's coverage of the Olympics.

Here's how other people responded to the news:

"Society is nearly finished (sadly)," one fan said.

"Curious if Al is gonna be compensated for this?? I mean it is still his voice... & pretty sure he owns the rights to his voice? Getting paid for doing nothing would be crazy tho," one fan questioned.

"This is a terrible idea," another wrote.

Will Al Michaels call Thursday Night Football games in 2024?

Al Michaels, left, during 2015 Summer TCA Tour - Day 17

While he may not be providing coverage of the 2024 Olympics over the summer, Al Michaels will still call football games in 2024.

At the end of December 2023, Michaels confirmed that he will be back next season as a play-by-play announcer for the 2024 season.

"I feel good. I feel healthy. I feel fine. I told Amazon that I'd do three years and next year will be three, and I'm definitely doing it. We'll see after that. I still love this job... I'm still really happy, so that's the big thing."

It sounds like after this season, Michaels could potentially retire or move down to a lesser role as he gets older.

Al Michaels is one of the most well-known sports announcers, especially for football. It will be interesting to see if other companies use AI-generated voices of other announcers and if NBC/Peacock will continue to use Michaels' voice once he retires.