I asked ChatGPT and Gemini to make me a March Madness bracket only one blew me away

Date:
Fri, 20 Mar 2026 10:44:50 +0000

Description:
I asked ChatGPT and Gemini to build NCAA tournament brackets. Only one built
a web page, but both chose Arizona to win it all.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Tech Radar Get the TechRadar Newsletter Sign up for
breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are
now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter I'm not a college basketball fan, but when the NCAA tournament rolls around aka March Madness my interest grows, mostly around making the celebrated
Bracket.

Brackets are basically a way of tracking the dozens of teams, games, rounds, winners, and losers to a final championship game roughly three weeks from
now. Each match-up results in a winner who goes on to the next round and
meets the winner of another matchup (in the early rounds, they're facing off against regional conference rivals), a process that continues winnowing
losing teams until there are just two left. In the US, it seems like everyone is in a pool, filling out brackets in the hope that they can guess the
winners and losers and walk away with bragging rights or a pool prize
(usually monetary). How people cook up their brackets varies widely. Some follow college sports closely enough to have a good idea of which team(s) might triumph. I am not one of those people I'm not even a casual college hoops fan. Article continues below You may like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude predict AI's future ChatGPT wrote me a horoscope and it wasn't out of this world ChatGPT and Gemini imagine new holidays It's reasonable to assume these days that some people are using AI to build their brackets, and I wondered if I could do the same. With the tournament kicking off on March 19 (and running through April 6), I was too late to build one and submit it to a pool; but as an exercise, I could see if AI game, rounds, and championship selections were any better than my dead reckoning. I built a prompt and fed it into ChatGPT Plus and Gemini Pro. In each case, I chose the 'Thinking' mode and, as you
can see, I encouraged the AI to take its time. Here's the prompt: "I'd love
to see the optimal NCAA tournament bracket, one that has the best chance of coming true. Don't rush on this. Consider records (season, historical), external factors (any you think are relevant). I want to see the whole
bracket and, if possible, be able to click on a game or round to see your reasoning." Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up
for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me
with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. I started with ChatGPT. For more than five minutes I watched as it worked through the problem, including deciding where it could source a decent 2026 NCAA men's tournament bracket in PDF format, which it used to extract the text.

Next, it looked at current tournament odds, favorites, and stats from sites like Reuters and Maizenbrew. It looked at seed data from The NY Post and The Telegraph (among others). ChatGPT found tournament performance details and information on coaches from the NCAA and Bracketodds.cs.illinois.edu.

It spent a chunk of time looking at injuries. What to read next I asked ChatGPT what to watch across 6 streaming apps and it nailed it ChatGPT and Gemini imagine new holidays How to watch March Madness 2026: free NCAA basketball live streams, TV channels, First Round

Next, ChatGPT used the data to make what it termed "reasonable tournament picks," but also considered historical upset data. More than once, it mentioned something called "chalk" or "chalk leaning", which in betting parlance means "favorites" or favored to win. ChatGPT was chalky throughout.

I could see that it started favoring some teams over the others: early favorites were Duke and Purdue. It kept a smattering of upsets in its plan, but definitely favored the safe, rational (chalky) approach over any Cinderella story.

Finally, ChatGPT was ready to build the bracket and, on its own, chose to
make a web page, using Python, HTML, and some simple CSS. Image 1 of 3 All of the bracket in three parts. (Image credit: Future) (Image credit: Future) (Image credit: Future) Next thing you know, I had an HTML file that I could download and plug into Safari . It's a stunning piece of work. Each matchup showed a winner, and I could scroll down through regions and rounds. For each game and pick, I could click to expand and see ChatGPT's reasoning.

In a matchup between Virginia and Iowa State in which Iowa wins, ChatGPT wrote, "Iowa State has the stronger Final Four signal and feels more
explosive while remaining sturdy enough defensively." Granted, I don't know enough about college basketball to know if this is accurate.

Near the bottom of the page, I found that the final matchup would be between Arizona and Michigan, with the former taking the NCAA Championship. ChatGPT explained its reasoning, but also told me which upsets could destroy the bracket:

"Highest-confidence regions: East early chalk , Midwest top line .

Swing games that could break this bracket fastest: Wisconsin/High Point , North Carolina/VCU , Tennessee/Miami (Ohio) , Kentucky/Santa Clara , Duke/Arizona . Different AI, same result Gemini Pro was quicker, returning a more skeletal table that I could export to Google Sheets and then its 'In-Depth Reasoning'. It took into account my hometown and why I might keep
an eye on St. Johns, but also shared why Duke would survive to the Final 4.

It predicted some upsets, like Santa Clara taking down Kentucky, but in the end, Gemini reached the same conclusion as ChatGPT: Arizona would win it all:

"This is a "Heavyweight" final. Duke has the star power (Boozer), but
Arizona has the roster versatility. Arizona's ability to throw three
different elite defenders at Cameron Boozer will be the difference.

The Prediction: Arizona wins its first title since 1997 in a high-scoring, 82-76 classic." (Image credit: Future) I wasn't that impressed with Gemini's work, but I loved what ChatGPT built (sadly, I cannot load the page in here, but you can see screenshots above). So, I asked ChatGPT to keep an eye on the tournament and let me know how the bracket is holding up. I wanted ChatGPT to watch Arizona. If it lost in an upset in one of the early rounds, this
bracket would be a bust.

"Done Ill check it every evening through the championship game and flag Arizona immediately if they go down. The tournament runs through Monday,
April 6, 2026."

There's always an enormous element of chance in a tournament like this, but I'm curious to see if ChatGPT and Gemini's picks are any better than mine or yours.

Let me know your March Madness thoughts in the comments below. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

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