With the 2026 World Cup approaching, multiple reports note that it is the first tournament in which widely available generative AI chatbots are readily used by fans and researchers to make predictions. Rather than relying on traditional prediction methods, people are prompting these AI systems to forecast match outcomes and tournament winners, treating the models as a new source of “tip” data. The coverage frames this as a shift in how audiences experiment with forecasting tools as generative AI becomes more accessible. While the articles describe the practice and the growing interest in using chatbots for sports predictions, they do not provide detailed evidence comparing AI accuracy to other methods such as expert forecasts or historical prediction games. Overall, the reporting indicates that generative AI is becoming part of public engagement around the World Cup, with users testing whether conversational AI can produce plausible tournament guidance as the competition nears.