A recap of Sunday’s CSC panel discussion — plus a behind the scenes look at our transcription of the session.

June 12, 2026

An Overview of the Session

This was a panel discussion at CSC Unite 26 that explored how AI is shifting from a source of skepticism to a practical, increasingly essential tool in athletic communications. Panelists shared how adoption typically starts with simple, low-risk uses (captions, first drafts, recaps) and expands into broader workflow improvements, staffing strategy, and more intentional storytelling.

Across roles (athletic director, communications staff, and an AI platform founder), the conversation emphasized AI as a support tool, rather than a replacement for human judgment—highlighting the need for strong prompting/context, careful editing, and clear boundaries so efficiency gains don’t translate into burnout or reduced authenticity.

Key Topics Discussed

AI adoption journey: skepticism to practical use

• Kyle Ferguson, Hannah Foley, and Cole Helman described early concerns (accuracy, authenticity, ethics) and how hands-on experimentation, peer examples, and seeing real-time savings shifted them toward adoption.

Prompting, inputs, and editorial control

• Panelists stressed that AI output quality depends on the context and examples you provide. They recommended giving AI prior writing samples, clear definitions of what you mean (e.g., what a “recap” is in sports), and using AI itself to help generate better prompts—while always editing and verifying.

Workflow efficiency in athletic communications

• AI was discussed as a way to reduce time spent on repetitive tasks (recaps, bios, routine writing), especially during crossover seasons and busy game-day schedules, freeing time for higher-impact content and improving work-life balance.

Storytelling and strategic value beyond time savings

• The panel emphasized using AI-enabled time savings to produce more human-interest content (athletes, coaches, alumni), support fundraising, and build fan engagement—rather than only increasing volume of routine outputs.

Concerns: job replacement fears and “AI slop”

• Chris Aumueller identified two recurring industry concerns: fear of AI replacing jobs and low-quality/generic AI writing. The panel argued that AI is “just a tool” and that using it well increases a communicator’s value; they also noted that specialized tools and strong editorial practices can reduce hallucinations and generic output.

Managing interns, authenticity, and burnout as expectations rise

• Panelists advised teaching interns fundamentals first (so they can work without AI access), using AI as a first draft rather than a final product, and setting boundaries/communicating with leadership so efficiency doesn’t automatically mean taking on more responsibilities.

Speaker Highlights

Kyle Ferguson

• Shared how he introduced AI to a staff with no prior usage, using small demos and focusing on better prompting; described major productivity gains in development work (proposals, campaign requests) and department coverage during staffing gaps.
• Emphasized AI’s value for fundraising through improved storytelling and said not using AI would be a concern when hiring communications candidates today.

Chris Aumueller

• Described early industry uncertainty around AI and how adoption accelerated once peers began sharing use cases; outlined how schools typically start with sports-specific workflows and then expand into storytelling.
• Addressed core concerns (job replacement and low-quality AI output), arguing that people using AI will outpace those who don’t, and that tools must be optimized to avoid inconsistent or hallucinated results.

Hannah Foley

• Explained how AI supports daily work through captions, recaps, awards, and especially bios—while stressing the need to check accuracy and maintain voice.
• Highlighted that AI can make communicators more present with teams and better positioned to notice and capture authentic storylines.

Cole Helman

• Focused on AI as a practical workload reducer that helps small staffs cover games more efficiently, handle crossover seasons, and spend more time on higher-visibility content (video, photos, social).
• Noted AI influenced staffing decisions by enabling hires with more creative/video strengths rather than only traditional SID skill sets, and emphasized maintaining brand voice through editing and review policies.

Key Takeaways

• The panel viewed AI literacy as increasingly expected in the profession, including in hiring conversations and future communications strategy.

• The fastest way to move from skepticism to confidence is to try AI on small, low-risk tasks (like captions or first drafts) and build from there.

• AI is most effective when users provide strong context: examples of past work, clear definitions, and detailed inputs; better prompts lead to better results.

• AI should function as a starting point (a “skeleton” or first draft), with humans responsible for accuracy checks, voice, brand standards, and final edits.

• Time savings from recaps, bios, and routine writing can be redirected toward higher-value work: storytelling, social/video creativity, fundraising support, and fan engagement.

• A major leadership opportunity is framing AI as a tool to increase impact and sustainability—not as justification to cut communications positions.

• Teaching interns should include fundamentals first, then AI augmentation, so they can still perform when AI tools aren’t available (e.g., travel situations).

• Burnout prevention requires boundaries and communication: efficiency gains shouldn’t automatically translate into more work; AI can also support healthier work-life balance.

Behind the scenes look

Here’s exactly what happened between the end of Sunday’s panel on AI and a live piece of content — and the bigger picture for every SID running a postgame press conference.

On Sunday afternoon at CSC Unite 2026, our team started a clock.

The session summarized above — “From Skepticism to Strategy: How AI is Becoming a Must-Have Tool for Athletic Communications” — had just finished. Five athletics stakeholders were walking off the stage:

• Travis Rae — Associate AD for Content and Communications at The University of Tulsa (and moderator)
• Kyle Ferguson — Athletic Director at Fresno Pacific University
• Hannah Foley — Assistant Director of Athletic Communications at George Mason University
• Cole Helman — Assistant AD for Athletic Communications at Palm Beach Atlantic University
• Christopher Aumueller — Our very own FanWord CEO

And we got to work, turning an hour of candid conversation about what AI adoption looks like in college athletic departments into the overview. highlights, and takeaways written above.

In the spirit of a behind-the-scenes look, here’s the process from end to end: grab the audio file, run it through FanWord Assist’s transcriptions feature, and get a polished, publishable recap of the session as fast as we possibly can. No pre-written copy. No cheating. Real-time, start to finish.

Final time: 7 minutes, 23 seconds from session end to transcribed and ready to post.

Here’s how it happened

Step 1 — Pull the audio.  We recorded the session on-site and had the file ready one minute of the panel wrapping. For SIDs at a postgame press conference, this is your recorder, your phone, or the video copy of the interview. Same workflow. And it all works the same.

Step 2 — Upload and transcribe.  The audio went straight into FanWord Assist. Transcription took a little over four minutes. A multi-speaker session with five voices (and a little crosstalk) came back clean, with speakers identified throughout.

Step 3 — Label speakers.  Next, we labeled the speakers in the transcript. This was easy because each speaker introduced themselves early in the audio file. Once we added a speaker’s name, it automatically carried over to any other speaking line in the transcript.

Step 4 — Generate summary.  We ran one summary type: General Summary. Other summary types include variations like Key Takeaways and Speaker Perspectives. Combined, they gave us the spine of the discussion (the main themes and arguments) and the human texture (individual voices and standout quotes).

Step 5 — Read the piece.  It took roughly two minutes to ensure everything was captured and nothing was missed. The output was accurate, so we moved on to Step 5.

Step 6 — Onto the website and published.  Just like any athletic website CMS — Sidearm, Presto, WMT — we pasted our finished work in, did a little web formatting and title writing. And boom. Published.

Perfect for your postgame workflow

Whether you’re grabbing a coach for 30 seconds and recording a voice memo or capturing a multi-speaker press conference, your use of time at the end of a game is critical.

And that’s exactly the kind of workflow Transcriptions was built for.

Let’s say you have a head coach, two or three student-athletes, good questions, and plenty of quotable material that your fans and followers want to read about right now, while the game is still in their recent memory.

You remember the “old version” — which is possibly still the current version for many. Record the moment. Transcribe all of it by hand. Or scrub through audio for the good quotes. All while writing the recap. And then dropping in the right words at the right time in your piece.

The new version: upload, generate, edit, publish.

As FanWord CEO Chris Aumueller mentioned in the discussion, “The goal is to get you 90% of the way there in 10% of the time.”

In this case, it’s a literal meaning. And it’s the reason why we rolled out several new Transcriptions updates earlier this year.

Other use-cases include:

• Coach Q&As: Turn a weekly coach interview into a cleaned-up Q&A, web story, email newsletter section, or social content without manually scrubbing through the full recording.
• Student-athlete spotlights: Capture quick interviews after practice or on the road, then turn those moments into short-form stories, quote graphics, captions, or feature outlines.
• Media day content: Upload longer interview sessions and quickly pull out key storylines, player quotes, season themes, and content ideas for the weeks ahead.
• Internal recaps and meeting notes: Summarize planning meetings, content brainstorms, postseason debriefs, or department conversations so key takeaways don’t disappear once everyone leaves the room.
• Podcast and video repurposing: Take long-form audio or video and turn it into written summaries, pull quotes, social captions, newsletter blurbs, and website content.

The value is that every conversation becomes easier to use.

The purpose of FanWord Assist is to help sports communicators close the gap between the content they want to create and the time they actually have to create it — whether that means publishing faster after a game, telling more meaningful stories, supporting more teams, or simply getting home a little earlier.

See what FanWord can do for your communications team: 
➡️ Request a demo using the contact form below
➡️ Reach out to our CEO directly to talk through your team’s workflow