We Asked 4 AI Models To Do March Madness. They Picked The Same Team — Then We Made Them Think Harder

Bracket season has arrived, and we can state confidently without even looking for evidence that there will be more AI-created entries than ever before.

Gone are the days where the people who don’t follow college basketball are left to bothering the biggest bro in the office for his picks. Or, better yet, submit an outlandish bracket that miraculously nails the 14 seed that makes it to the Elite 8. Now everyone is just going to turn to their imaginary friends named Claude, and end up submitting the same brackets.

Literally, the same brackets. The Daily Wire had the four leading AI models predict the 2026 NCAA March Madness Basketball Tournament. The first round of projections from all four models was exactly what you’d expect from robots trained on the internet’s safest instincts: Duke, Duke, Duke, and Duke.

The Daily Wire fed the complete 68-team bracket to four of the top AI systems — OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, and Perplexity — and asked each to produce a full bracket prediction from the First Four through the national championship. Each model received the same seed lines, win-loss records, KenPom efficiency ratings, key injuries, betting odds, and conference placement data.

This is unsurprising, as given a straightforward prompt to process sports predictions, top AI models default to the most obvious answer: The top-ranked team with the best stats. The Blue Devils enter March Madness as the No. 1 overall seed, sat atop the NET, AP Poll, and KenPom, and went 11-2 against AP Top 25 opponents.

There was very little divergence in the projections of all four AI models. ChatGPT and Perplexity both had Duke beating Arizona in the final. Gemini had Duke over Houston. The models read the same numbers, weighted the same KenPom rankings, and arrived at the same safe, predictable conclusion: the No. 1 overall seed with the nation’s best defense and best player wins it all.

So we asked AI to think harder…

As hard as it might be for AI chatbots to admit, Duke is not a lock to win this tournament. The pre-tournament favorite has won the NCAA men’s tournament only 7 times in the last 19 played tournaments over the past 20 years.

In a second round of analysis, The Daily Wire gave each model the same background information but supplemented the prompt with historical upset base rates dating to the 1985 expansion, specific vulnerability profiles for each No. 1 seed, injury data, and regional geography advantages — factors not fully captured in the first analysis. The models were instructed to abandon tournament-favorite Duke in order to play the role of “upset analyst” and to account for the fact that the best team on paper wins the national championship less than 35% of the time.

ChatGPT switched its prediction to Houston, projecting Kingston Flemings as MOP and routing the Cougars through a South Region where they’d essentially play home games at Toyota Center. Gemini also landed on Houston, envisioning a title-game win over UConn. Claude pivoted to Michigan, betting on the Wolverines’ No. 1-ranked defense to grind Duke down in the championship game, 71-65.

Perplexity had the boldest prediction, picking 4-seed Arkansas behind freshman point guard Darius Acuff Jr., who it projected to average over 30 points per game through the tournament.

Illustration via Daily Wire staff.

Without Duke as the default option, all four models agreed that the bracket would devolve into organized chaos.

All four models picked 12-seed Akron to upset 5-seed Texas Tech, citing the Red Raiders’ devastating loss of star J.T. Toppin to a torn ACL and Akron guard Tavari Johnson’s 20-plus points per game. All four picked 9-seed Iowa over 8-seed Clemson, noting that the Hawkeyes are ranked 11 KenPom spots higher despite being the lower seed. And all four picked 11-seed VCU to knock off North Carolina, a team missing projected top-5 NBA pick Caleb Wilson due to a broken thumb.

Here are the results.

ChatGPT 5.4:

• Final Four: (2) UConn, (6) BYU, (3) Virginia, (2) Houston
• Semis: BYU over UConn, Houston over Virginia
• Championship: Houston over BYU
• Champion: Houston
• MOP: Kingston Flemings (Houston) — 16.4 PPG, 5.3 AST
• 1-seeds in Final Four: Zero
• Where Duke died: Elite Eight (lost to UConn)
• First-round upsets by double-digit seeds: 7
• Boldest call: BYU to the Final Four behind AJ Dybantsa (25.3 PPG, nation’s leading scorer)

Claude Opus 4.6:

• Final Four: (1) Duke, (4) Arkansas, (1) Michigan, (2) Houston
• Semis: Duke over Arkansas 78-72, Michigan over Houston 64-56
• Championship: Michigan 71, Duke 65
• Champion: Michigan
• MOP: Yaxel Lendeborg (Michigan) — 19 pts, 9 reb in title game
• 1-seeds in Final Four: Two (Duke and Michigan)
• Where Duke died: Championship game (only model to get Duke to the Final Four)
• First-round upsets by double-digit seeds: 6
• Boldest call: Michigan’s No. 1-ranked defense grinds Duke into submission in the title game despite Boozer’s 24 and 11

Gemini 3:

• Final Four: (2) UConn, (4) Arkansas, (2) Iowa State, (2) Houston
• Semis: UConn over Arkansas, Houston over Iowa State
• Championship: Houston 71, UConn 64
• Champion: Houston
• MOP: Kingston Flemings (Houston)
• 1-seeds in Final Four: Zero
• Where Duke died: Elite Eight (lost to UConn)
• First-round upsets by double-digit seeds: 13 (tied with Perplexity for most chaotic bracket)
• Boldest call: All four 1-seeds eliminated before the Final Four; McNeese to the Sweet 16; Arizona bounced in the Round of 32 by 9-seed Utah State

Perplexity Sonar:

• Final Four: (3) Michigan State, (4) Arkansas, (2) Iowa State, (2) Houston
• Semis: Arkansas over Michigan State, Houston over Iowa State
• Championship: Arkansas over Houston
• Champion: Arkansas
• MOP: Darius Acuff Jr. (Arkansas)
• 1-seeds in Final Four: Zero
• Where Duke died: Elite Eight (lost to Michigan State)
• Where Michigan died: Round of 32 (lost to 9-seed Saint Louis — the single wildest pick of the experiment)
• First-round upsets by double-digit seeds: 13 (by far the most chaotic bracket)
• Boldest call: 1-seed Michigan bounced in the Round of 32 by Saint Louis; 4-seed Arkansas wins it all

Duke may still cruise to a championship, but if not, these projections offer alternative brackets to help sort through the chaos of March Madness.