
Dec 2, 2023
Details of Shaquille O’Neal’s latest venture were detailed in two U.S. Patent and Trademark Office filings on Thursday: an artificial intelligence product for Authentic, the licensing group that owns Sports Illustrated.
The filings for “ASK SHAQ” and “SHAQ AI” include few details of the project, but a source with knowledge of situation told Front Office Sports that the potential A.I. play was the Hall of Famer’s idea and that he first broached it with Authentic only days before the trademark filings.
An A.I. chatbot or similar product remains months off, the source said.
“Authentic owns the rights to Shaq’s personal name brand,” Josh Gerben, founding partner of Gerben Perrott PLLC, told FOS. “This could be a sort of chatbot that’s based on Shaq, where people would be able to go in and ask questions, and A.I. Shaq would answer.”
Source: Front Office Sports