EA Sports fed John Buccigross his own voice back to him, and he liked what he heard.
The veteran sports commentator says the publisher is using generative AI to create voiceover for the in-game commentary in NHL 27.
Buccigross made the comments on the Chirping Zebras podcast while talking about his history working with EA Sports on the NHL series. He confirmed he’ll appear in NHL 27, and said EA also used generative AI to add voice lines.
“They’re using some AI now; they played me some stuff back of my voice,” said Buccigross. “It’s like ‘Wow, that’s pretty good!’ If that means less work but the same check, I’ll take it. Sometimes AI will get something wrong. One of the guys was playing it back, and a lot of these guys maybe aren’t hardcore sports fans; they’re video game extrordinares. They’re not always up on the vernacular. So they’re playing back my AI voice, and they’re like, ‘Score! And the crowd gets out of their chairs!’ I was like, ‘No, they’re not chairs. They look like chairs, but we call them seats.’
“So, little things like that, you gotta go back and listen because words matter. […] But then you can make AI smarter; in the future they’ll say seats, they won’t say chairs. You have to manually put that in. That was kind of a funny anecdote from the process.”
Chairs, seats and the limits of a synthetic broadcast booth
That anecdote is the whole story in miniature. The model nails the cadence of a hockey call and then whiffs on a word any rink regular would get right on instinct. Somebody still has to sit there, catch it and type in the correction.
Buccigross doesn’t sound bothered by any of it. Less work, same check. Hard to argue with the math.
EA is labeling this everywhere except here
Generative AI keeps spreading through game development, and plenty of players aren’t happy about it. Call of Duty took heat last year for using AI to generate cosmetics such as calling cards. EA Sports appears to be leaning into the tech across its 2026 slate.
This year’s College Football, Madden and FC all carry labels on their Steam pages disclosing the use of generative AI in development. NHL isn’t on Steam, so no such notice exists for it.
EA has been asked for comment on how AI is being used in NHL 27 specifically, and whether it goes beyond voiceover.
The game itself is treading water
NHL 27 launches September 11, 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. It scored a 6/10 in review, with the verdict landing on fun but static: it doesn’t do much to improve on its predecessor.
“Hockey is one of the greatest sports in the world, and NHL 27 remains enjoyable largely due to that simple fact,” reads an excerpt from the review. “The satisfaction of delivering a bone-crushing hit or snapping a wrist shot past a goaltender is just as effective as ever, and tiny tweaks to stuff like stadiums and music continue to add authenticity in small doses – but there are no illusions that anything truly substantial has changed this year.”
So the hits still land, the stadiums sound a little better, and somewhere in the audio pipeline a machine is learning that people sit in seats.
