Will 2026 be the year of AI World Cup predictions?

There are a few months yet until we reach the kind of fever pitch of excitement for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but the anticipation should change in the coming weeks, especially when competitions like the UEFA Champions League wind down.  Still, there is a growing presence of World Cup content in the sports media. And, we should note, there is a significant number of articles promoting AI predictions for the tournament. 

It is quite common to see these pieces, and they certainly predate the recent AI boom. In the past, you had media outlets running stories like “supercomputer predicts World Cup.” But nowadays, everyone has access to AI, so they are much more common. You can’t blame the media outlets because it’s an easy way to frame a topical story. 

Can AI be useful for soccer predictions?

But how much credence should you give these predictions? Should AI impact your betting strategy before you bet with a sportsbook or trade sports on prediction markets online? The answer is not quite as cut and dry as you might think. 

First, we will point out something of a misnomer: These articles always frame it as “AI predicts,” as if AI is a singular, almost omnipotent, entity. One would be right to ask which model they used, how the bot parsed out its answers, and, crucially, what data it used. 

Indeed, we’d argue that the first step in AI predictions is to work with a proprietary model trained on sports data. If it is something like ChatGPT or Gemini – the basic consumer versions of those bots, even the premium versions – we would have reservations about what value they could add that goes beyond sports punditry. In short, asking ChatGPT, “Who will win the World Cup?”, is not going to throw up anything earth-shatteringly insightful. And many of these “AI predicts” articles do just that. 

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AI can be useful for analyzing data 

In saying that, there are instances when AI models can be helpful. The simple caveat is that they require good data to formulate answers, and by good data, we don’t just mean recent results or previous World Cup performances. It has to be detailed, useful structured and unstructured data, the type of stuff that brands like Opta accumulate and sell on to organizations that need advanced stats, such as sportsbooks. 

If betting, the key is not to simply use AI to predict a tournament like the World Cup, but to compare the data with the odds offered. Anyone can tell you that Spain is the favorite for the World Cup, but the question is whether the Spanish offer value to win it. Those are two different things, though there is some overlap. But the key is that using AI – trained on the right data – might offer the keys to unlocking the answer. 

In the end, we would say this: be skeptical. AI is absolutely not an oracle, particularly so the consumer-facing bots that most of us have access to. You won’t get much more insight than you would from reading The Athletic or Bleacher Report. In fact, AI’s penchant for cherry-picking without context might lead you in the wrong direction. The best advice for AI and World Cup predictions? Use it as a sounding board to play devil’s advocate for your strategies. Just don’t expect it to work miracles.