The Kansas City current will welcome fans to the CPKC Stadium with a little help from artificial intelligence to make entering games a more seamless experience.
Scott Jenkins, vice president of Facility Development for the Kansas City Current, an expansion team in the National Women's Soccer League, told KMBC that the new tech will help create the best fan experience possible when entering the stadium.
"We don't need human intervention anymore," Jenkins said. "We can use technology and so we can make the entry process a frictionless process and get people into the stadium very easily."
The AI pillars, produced by Xtract One Technologies, will be installed at entry points and will scan fans for weapons or times not allowed inside CPKC Stadium.
President and CEO of Xtract Peter Evans said the technology will only get smarter as it's used.
"In our case, it's looking at all sorts of characteristics of items," Evans told KMBC. "You know, what is a cell phone look like? What are the metals in it? What are the densities or the properties of it and things like that and be able to say this is a cell phone and this is a knife. Now you have to train these systems to be able to accurately say this is a cell phone and this is a knife."
The AI-powered pillars will be installed at CPKC stadium in the weeks leading up to the KC Current's home opener, scheduled for March 16.
"There's just be a lane with two devices on the side of you and you'll just walk right on through," said Jenkins. "And if we need to do a secondary screen then we'll pull you aside and do a secondary screen. But the vast majority of people are just going to walk right in this."
