B4’s Richard Rosser looks back on our World Cup Sweepstake results.
Predicting the future is something every business leader does every day.
Whether it’s forecasting sales, planning investment, assessing risk or spotting opportunities, we’re all trying to answer one simple question:
“What happens next?”
That was the thinking behind B4’s World Cup Prediction Experiment, launched at the B4 summer dinner at Nicholsons on the opening night of the FIFA World Cup. What began as a charity sweepstake quickly evolved into a fascinating social experiment exploring four different ways of predicting the future.
More importantly, thanks to the generosity of everyone taking part, the evening also raised £975 for Raise.
Four Ways to Predict the Future
Guests were each invited to purchase a randomly allocated World Cup nation for £25 before competing in four different prediction challenges.
Reality – the nation that actually went on to win the FIFA World Cup.
The People’s Choice – every guest voted for the nation they believed would lift the trophy.
The ChatGPT Prediction – before the tournament began, ChatGPT was asked one simple question: “Who do you think will win the FIFA World Cup?” The answer was sealed in an envelope and remained unopened until after the final.
The Human + AI World Cup – perhaps the most entertaining of all. Guests generated the scores using a simple formula based on the number of letters in their first name, while AI processed every result, produced the group tables and guided the tournament all the way to its own World Cup Final.
The results were, at times, gloriously unpredictable.
The Human + AI World Cup sent the likes of South Africa, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Scotland, Tunisia, Iraq and Uzbekistan into the knockout stages, while several traditional footballing powerhouses failed to make the cut.
It proved a brilliant reminder that when you combine human input with artificial intelligence, you don’t always get the answer you expect.
And the Winner Is…
When the real World Cup reached its conclusion, one nation stood above all the rest.
Spain.
Remarkably, Spain had also won the People’s Choice vote on the opening night, narrowly beating Brazil.
When the sealed ChatGPT prediction envelope was finally opened, it too revealed…
Spain.
That meant three of the four prediction methods all pointed to the same eventual World Champions.
Even more remarkably, Natalie Pierre-Davis of Abingdon & Witney College, who had randomly drawn Spain in the charity sweepstake, became the night’s biggest winner.
Natalie claimed three of the four competitions:
🏆 The Reality Prize
🏆 The People’s Choice Prize
🏆 The ChatGPT Prediction Prize
A remarkable result from one envelope.
The only competition to go its own way was our wonderfully chaotic Human + AI World Cup — proof, perhaps, that while AI can process data brilliantly, the inputs we humans provide can still send it in some wonderfully unexpected directions!
Better Conversations. Better Decisions.
The World Cup Prediction Experiment was designed to be a bit of fun, but it also reflected something increasingly relevant to every business.
Good decisions rarely rely on one source of information alone.
Experience matters.
Data matters.
Technology matters.
But ultimately, reality always has the final say.
Congratulations once again to Natalie Pierre-Davis, thanks to everyone who took part, and thank you for helping raise £975 for charity.
Who knows… perhaps we’ll run the experiment again for Euro 2028. However, if England are to be more successful in reaching a final I will increase the odds by not attending. Having now been present at three major tournament semi-finals (World Cups in 1990 and 2026 and the Euro 1996 semi-final), it really has become a case of “England… It’s Not You, It’s Me”.
See more pics from the evening here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCWwq9