The Hughes Report: OWL AI Taps Jay Prasad to Scale Vision AI from Judging to Global Media

BOULDER, Colo. – June 18, 2026 – In a move signaling a strategic pivot from technological incubation to aggressive commercialization, live intelligence firm OWL AI has appointed Jay Prasad as its new Chief Executive Officer. The appointment marks a new chapter for the company, which made waves with its AI-powered judging platform at the 2025 X Games. Prasad, a veteran of scaling data and media technology platforms, succeeds Josh Gwyther, the former Google Cloud AI head who steered the company through its launch and will now transition to an advisory role.

This leadership shuffle is more than a simple changing of the guard; it is a clear statement of intent. With its foundational technology proven and an $11 million seed round in the bank, OWL AI is shifting its focus from the lab to the global marketplace. Founder and Executive Chairman Jeremy Bloom will continue to guide the long-term vision, but the mandate for Prasad is unmistakable: take OWL AI’s powerful platform and make it the indispensable intelligence layer for leagues, broadcasters, and rights holders worldwide.

A Strategic Pivot to Commercial Scale

Jay Prasad’s resume reads like a blueprint for the exact challenge OWL AI now faces. His career is defined by his success at the intersection of media, data, and AI, particularly in building and scaling platforms that create new value from complex data streams. Most recently as CEO of Relo Metrics, he helped build a leading computer vision platform for sponsorship intelligence. Before that, his time as Chief Strategy Officer at LiveRamp and as a founding executive at VideoAmp saw him building category-defining data infrastructure used across the television and digital media landscape.

This experience is not merely adjacent to OWL AI’s mission; it is central to its future success. While the company’s initial focus was on solving the complex problem of objective judging in subjective sports, its ambition has expanded significantly. The goal now is to monetize the “enormous value that today goes uncaptured” in every live event, as Prasad noted. This includes everything from officiating and production to branding and fan experiences.

“Jay has spent his career scaling category-defining technology businesses at the intersection of media, data, and AI,” said Bloom. “He is the right leader to help us bring OWL to leagues, broadcasters, rights holders, and live events around the world.” Prasad’s appointment is a strategic bet that the person who knows how to measure, package, and sell data-driven insights to the media industry is the ideal leader to commercialize a platform that generates an entirely new class of live intelligence.

Prasad’s own words reinforce this focus. “OWL is building the live intelligence layer that captures it: one platform that turns live video into real-time understanding, deployed across every sport it touches,” he stated. “The technology is already proving itself with leagues and broadcasters, and my job is to take it to the world.”

Beyond the Whistle: The 'Live Intelligence Layer'

To understand OWL AI’s potential, one must look beyond the initial application of AI-assisted judging. The company’s core asset is its “live intelligence layer,” a sophisticated platform designed to transform raw live video into a stream of actionable, real-time intelligence. This moves it far beyond competitors like Hawk-Eye, which primarily focus on binary, objective calls like in-or-out.

OWL AI tackles the far more complex world of subjective sports—snowboarding, gymnastics, figure skating—where style, difficulty, and execution are key. The system, built in partnership with Google Cloud and leveraging its Gemini models, was trained on decades of proprietary X Games video archives and detailed judging criteria. This multimodal training allows it to analyze an athlete's “economy of motion” and understand nuances that are difficult for the human eye to process in real-time. During its 2025 X Games debut, the platform successfully predicted the men's snowboard SuperPipe podium finishers by analyzing practice runs alone.

But officiating is just the entry point. The platform’s suite of AI agents is designed to automate replay and production workflows, generate AI-driven analysis and multilingual commentary, and power entirely new interactive fan experiences. For broadcasters, this means the potential to create hyper-personalized streams, automate highlight reels, and provide deeper analytics to commentators on the fly. For leagues, it offers a way to ensure fairness, unlock new data for coaching, and create new digital assets for monetization.

As former CEO Josh Gwyther put it, “It's been an incredible year building the team, the product and securing our first leagues with OWL.” He added his excitement for Prasad to “scale the business” as the company enters this next phase.

From Startup to Sports Tech Powerhouse

OWL AI’s ascent has been rapid. Founded by two-time Olympic champion and entrepreneur Jeremy Bloom, the company emerged from a deeply personal mission to eliminate the human judging errors that can devastate an athlete's career. This founder-market fit, combined with a compelling proof-of-concept at the X Games, quickly attracted top-tier investors.

The $11 million seed round was led by S32, the venture firm founded by Google Ventures creator Bill Maris, with participation from AI-focused powerhouses Menlo Ventures and Susa Ventures. The investment thesis is clear: these firms see OWL AI not as a niche officiating tool, but as a foundational platform with the potential to reshape the entire sports and media landscape. Andy Harrison, CEO of S32, noted that OWL AI is “building more than just a new layer of fairness in sports – they're reshaping how the world experiences competition.”

This confidence is built on the company’s ambitious vision to become the central intelligence engine for all live events. The initial deployment at the X Games, while described as having some “clunky” moments in its broadcast integration, proved the core technology was sound. The company is reportedly already in discussions with a dozen other sports properties, from major leagues to smaller Olympic sports, to expand its footprint.

Navigating the Human Element and Market Adoption

Despite the technological promise and investor backing, the path forward for OWL AI is not without significant challenges, which now fall squarely on Prasad’s desk. The primary hurdle is navigating the cultural and ethical dimensions of integrating AI into the hallowed ground of professional sports. Public and athlete reception to the idea of AI judges has been mixed, with many expressing skepticism and a desire to retain the human element in sports.

Bloom and his team have been careful to frame the technology as a tool to give judges “superpowers,” not replace them. The goal is to augment human capabilities and provide objective data to support decisions, thereby reducing error and increasing transparency. Successfully communicating this “assistance, not replacement” philosophy will be critical for gaining acceptance from leagues, athletes, and fans.

Furthermore, moving from a controlled environment like the X Games to the complex, high-stakes ecosystems of major broadcast networks and professional leagues requires more than just good technology. It requires seamless integration, proven reliability, and a clear demonstration of return on investment. Prasad’s experience in building strategic partnerships with top media players will be invaluable in overcoming the inertia and technical hurdles inherent in the broadcast industry.

Ultimately, OWL AI's success will be measured not by the accuracy of its algorithms alone, but by its ability to become a trusted, integrated, and value-additive partner in the live sports ecosystem. With Jay Prasad at the helm, the company has a leader equipped to navigate this complex commercial and cultural landscape, aiming to transform a brilliant technological concept into a global industry standard.