Sunny Ray talks with Gary Olson, founder of AI Vigil, an entrepreneur applying knowledge graph AI to professional sports injuries. Olson explains that over 68% of sports injuries are soft tissue and that single scans such as X-rays or MRIs often fail to capture the full picture, including sympathetic pain that radiates from a primary injury to another area. AI Vigil aims to bring imaging from different systems, X-ray, MRI, CT, and more, into one unified view so medical teams can see the complete injury pattern rather than toggling between separate tools. Olson stresses the technology does not diagnose or replace doctors, it surfaces commonalities across images so professionals with expertise can make faster, better informed decisions. He shares that human specialists reading sports MRIs are over 78% more accurate than general radiologists, underscoring why targeted, richer information matters for return to play calls, which carry major financial stakes for players, teams, and leagues. The conversation closes with Olson's plans to launch in professional soccer, expand globally, and eventually help college athletes with lasting injuries, alongside his views on the misunderstood nature of artificial intelligence.
AI Vigil founder Gary Olson on using knowledge graph AI to unify sports imaging and speed up return to play decisions.
What is Athletic Insight and can you give an elevator pitch?
Over 68% of sports injuries are soft tissue, like sprains or pulled muscles, and diagnosis with X-rays or MRIs alone often misses the full picture. We bring imaging together using knowledge graph AI so medical teams see a complete representation of an injury. This helps isolate treatment, prevent pain from radiating elsewhere, and improve return to play decisions, which matter financially to players, teams, and leagues.
How do you get doctors to trust the technology for return to play calls?
We are not diagnosing or reading images ourselves. Doctors already look at MRIs, X-rays, and CT scans individually, toggling between applications. We bring those images into one screen so they get a full 360 degree view. We identify commonality across platforms and present it to the medical team, who apply their own knowledge and experience to make the call.
Is the first win about better outcomes, faster return to play, or fewer missed injuries?
If they can better diagnose an injury, that is the preferred outcome, because better diagnosis leads to better treatment and better health. Since we deal with professional sports, improving the return to play timeline benefits everyone financially, the player, the team, the league. But the first priority is always treating the injury correctly.
What does the first clear proof point look like in the field?
We are working with a team of sports medical professionals who currently do this manually. They plan to run our technology side by side with their manual process to see if it matches what they do, then help us improve it. We are not replacing them, we are testing whether this can scale beyond the limited number of humans with that expertise.
Where do you want the company to be in the next two years?
Our first target area is professional soccer, and we can move from the US to global. We also want to help college athletes who get hurt and never make it into professional sports but still live with that injury. Better diagnosis and treatment for them means a better life without worrying about an old sports injury.
What is the one thing you want a founder or investor to take away?
From an investor perspective this is a great opportunity because it is a software application, not something competing to dig holes and build data centers. For founders, you have to fight the good fight, understand that building products is hard, and take care of the people working for you. Work life balance matters, we work to live, we do not live to work.
What do you believe about this market that most people building in AI do not?
AI is a field of discipline, not a thing, and I believe people misunderstand what artificial intelligence really is. The first word is artificial, and we should be careful about how much real intelligence is delivered versus something that just seems clever. I think most people are confused about what counts as genuinely intelligent.
Where can people learn more about you and the company?
I am very much on LinkedIn under Gary Olson, easy to find, though my background is also in broadcast technology and I have a patent in streaming media. Our website is aivigil.com, spelled AI hyphen vigil dot com, and I am happy to help anyone who reaches out.
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