People will gamble on anything. Which horse can run around a dirt track fastest? What number will a little white ball fall on in a big spinning wheel in a Vegas casino? Who can eat the most hot dogs in 10 minutes?
Some of the biggest bets happen on Super Bowl Sunday, and no matter what the sports bookies say, two things are for certain: There will be elated winners and more than a few sore losers. While it’s impossible to predict the exact outcome of the game, AI systems might have a unique ability to parse information and accessible statistics, giving the average Joe a better grasp of what’s possible on game day.
Here’s how I used four AI chatbots — ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and Claude AI — to try to predict the 2026 Super Bowl.
Guessing and gambling can be fun as an adjunct to sports, but if you’re doing it for money, please be responsible. Also, be very aware that generative AI makes mistakes and, like the outcomes of sporting events, can be unpredictable in gambling and other ventures.
Read more: I Almost Won My March Madness Pool Thanks to ChatGPT’s Bracket Suggestions
The teams: Seattle Seahawks vs. New England Patriots
Deep into the latter end of the NFL season last week, with only four teams left, I asked four AI chatbots to predict which two teams would make it to the Super Bowl. All predicted the Seattle Seahawks would play the New England Patriots on Feb. 8 — and all were correct.
The chatbots all got incredibly detailed in their predictions of when and what the pivotal moments in the big game would be, who would dominate in the first half, which players would have standout performances, and what the memorable highlights of the game would be.
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The coin toss: Seattle Seahawks
Three out of four of the AI systems I used predicted that the Seattle Seahawks would win the coin toss in the 2026 Super Bowl, choose tails over heads and give the ball to the New England Patriots to kick off the game. Gemini was the outlier, saying the Patriots would win the coin toss, choose tails and give the ball to the Seahawks.
Notably, ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot both made guesses, while Google Gemini and Claude AI relied on historical Super Bowl data to predict the outcome of the coin toss.
The outcomes: Seattle Seahawks win by 27 points
This is where the predictions started to get interesting: All four AI systems made the same predictions for who would win the 2026 Super Bowl and, what’s more, almost exactly the same predictions for the end score.
According to ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and Claude AI, the Seattle Seahawks will win against the New England Patriots, either 27-23 or 27-24.
When asked to generate the reasoning behind these startlingly similar predictions, all the AI systems gave different answers.
The halftime show: Cameos by Cardi B and J Balvin
Don’t bet on any unexpected rainfall or wardrobe malfunctions during the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show. All the AI systems queried about the ins and outs of the performance pretty much agreed: Bad Bunny will bring his special brand of multilingual pop, hip-hop, Latin beats, and lyrics to the show, despite political discourse around his history-making appearance.
Cameos by special guests like Cardi B and J Balvin were also commonly predicted, as well as a generally tame execution, missing the more socially and politically charged undertones of previous performances by Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé.
When asked what they predict will be on the set list for Bad Bunny’s halftime performance, the four chatbots all agreed on:
- Tití Me Preguntó
- Me Porto Bonito
- I Like It (with cameo appearances)
Three bots also said:
- Dákiti
- Baile Inolvidable (two of the chatbots said this could be the finale)
And two chatbots agreed on:
- El Apagón
- NuevaYol
- Yo Perreo Sola
The extras: National anthem, viewership, most expensive Super Bowl ad
It seems that great artificial minds think alike again. Every AI system we tested generated very similar predictions for the length of the national anthem performance (around 2 minutes), total viewership for the game (between 118 million and 130 million), and halftime show viewership (around 130 million).
The AI systems differed slightly in their predictions about which company would plonk down the most cash for a Super Bowl commercial in 2026, and were split between beer, gadgets, and AI itself.
Claude predicted that an AI company would spend the most, at $8.5 million per 30 seconds of screen time. Gemini predicted that Anheuser-Busch would be the biggest spender overall, with a commitment of 2.5 minutes of total airtime, and that OpenAI would spend the most on screen time. ChatGPT predicted Apple would go all in on a Super Bowl ad and drop $14 million to $16 million on a 60-second spot, with Copilot in agreement.
Super Bowl betting: Total spend
Finally, the figures on Super Bowl betting were just as broad and open as the space between goal posts. Claude predicted $9.2 billion would be spent on legal betting around the 2026 Super Bowl, while Gemini predicted a whopping $25 billion in bets.
ChatGPT and Copilot had to be prompted to speculate on the mounds of money in play, but both gave much lower estimates in the range of $2.5 billion to $6 billion. That can buy a lot of beer and wings.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
