Did Grok just predict the 97th Academy Awards?

The votes are in and now it's time to see whether the world's most popular chatbots were able to predict the outcome of the 97th Academy Awards.

Previously, Cybernews asked ChatGPT to predict the outcome of the Superbowl 2025. OpenAI’s chatbot claimed that the Kansas City Chiefs would come out on top.

However, this prediction turned out to be a massive flop.

But God loves a trier, so with the 97th Academy Awards on the horizon, I wanted to up the ante and see whether any of these five chatbots could accurately predict the outcome of some of the most coveted categories.

I asked six chatbots:

• Perplexity AI
• Claude
• DeepSeek
• ChatGPT
• Gemini
• Grok

To choose a winner between these six categories:

• Actor in a Leading Role
• Actor in a Supporting Role
• Actress in a Leading Role
• Actress in a Supporting Role
• Best Picture
• Directing

Well, the results are in and it seems that some of the chatbots missed the mark.

97th Oscar winners

One chatbot was almost spot on when predicting who would win the 97th Academy Awards.

Elon Musk’s Grok was the closest to predicting the outcomes of the Oscars.

Grok got one category wrong (Best Actress) but the chatbot did say that this category was “a nailbiter” and that it was between Mikey Madision and Demi Moore.

Other chatbots like Perplexity AI did well also, predicting five out of six (like Grok) categories correctly.

However, ChatGPT predicted four out of six correct and Gemini only predicted half correct. DeepSeek did an awful job.

The votes are in, and the winners of the 2025 Academy Awards are:

Actor in a Leading Role: Adrien Brody for The Brutalist.

Actor in a Supporting Role: Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain.

Actress in a Leading Role: Mikey Madison in Anora.

Actress in a Supporting Role: Zoe Saldaña in Emilia Pérez.

Best Picture: Anora.

Directing: Sean Baker for Anora

Perplexity AI

The paid version of Perplexity AI, “Perplexity Pro,” came up with its answers much like ChatGPT did with the Superbowl.

As it can search the web, it finds information from various places and makes judgments based on that.

Perplexity’s sources were interesting as they featured various outlets that I’d never heard of who were making their Oscar predictions ahead of the big day.

Outlets like Digital Spy, EW, and Awards Daily were among the sources, with the only one ringing a bell being Yahoo News, which I’m not sure is the most reliable, either.

However, according to Perplexity AI, “it prioritizes authoritative sources” as it scans the web for “trusted websites, academic papers, and credible databases.”

These were Perplexity AI’s top picks for each category:

Actor in a Leading Role: Adrien Brody for "The Brutalist"

Actor in a Supporting Role: Kieran Culkin for "A Real Pain"

Actress in a Leading Role: Demi Moore for "The Substance"

Actress in a Supporting Role: Zoe Saldana for "Emilia Perez"

Best Picture: "Anora"

Directing: Sean Baker for "Anora

Claude

Claude’s top picks for this year's Academy Awards were…an absolute nightmare.

See, Claude can’t search the internet, and its knowledge base is only up to April 2024, when the Oscar nominees weren’t announced.

So, it had to essentially make up potential winners based on anticipated flicks of the season.

For example, Claude said that Joaquin Phoenix may win an Oscar for his performance in Todd Haynes' "Rumors."

However, Phoenix reportedly dropped out of the project just five days before it was scheduled to begin.

But, when I fed Claude the nominee lists for each category and asked it to pick one of each, these are the results I got:

Actor in a Leading Role: Colman Domingo for "Sing Sing."

Actor In a Supporting Role: Edward Norton for "A Complete Unknown."

Actress in a Leading Role: Karla Sofía Gascón for "Emilia Pérez."

Actress in a Supporting Role: Zoe Saldaña for "Emilia Pérez."

Directing: Jacques Audiard for "Emilia Pérez."

Best Picture: Emilia Perez

Claude did give reasoning for choosing Emilia Perez to win four out of the six nominations, which was the “highly accomplished actress Zoe Saldana and Karla Sofia Gascon,” the “artistically ambitious” film that is (supposedly) Emilia Perez, and the acclaimed international director Jacques Audiard.

This might not be far off as, according to AI, pictures and actors who win Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards or BAFTAs might be more likely to win an Oscar.

Emilia Perez was up for three SAG Awards but won one in Salanda’s category and won two BAFTAs.

DeepSeek

DeepSeek’s predictions were utterly tragic – to say the least.

The “revolutionary” chatbot, which made a stir in the AI community not too long ago, flopped when it came to searching the web for predictions on who would win the Oscars.

DeepSeek, which reportedly only spent $6 million training its advanced AI model and can supposedly outperform other AI models, can’t even search the web.

When I asked, it said it was having “technical difficulties” and for me to try again later.

But, for fun, I’ll show you what it produced. Most of these “nominees” weren’t even nominated this year but may have been in the running the previous year before DeepSeek’s knowledge cut off.

Actor in a Leading Role: Leonardo DiCaprio (if he delivers a strong performance in a high-profile 2024 film).

Actor in a Supporting Role: Robert Downey Jr. (if he continues to choose challenging roles)

Actress in a Leading Role: Emma Stone (if she continues her streak of acclaimed performances)

Actress in a Supporting Role: Viola Davis (if she delivers another powerful supporting performance)

Directing: Christopher Nolan (if he releases a new film in 2024)

Best Picture: Christopher Nolan or Greta Gerwig, depending on their 2024 projects.

ChatGPT

After ChatGPT’s spectacular flop with the Superbowl, I was interested to see what it would come up with.

Obviously, as stated in our previous article, ChatGPT only makes conclusions based on information from other sources – which, at this point, are only speculative.

Therefore, much like Perplexity AI, it could only regurgitate information based on other media and can’t really hedge a guess of its own fruition.

Based on reputable media outlets like Reuters and Vulture, ChatGPT decided the outcome for these categories:

Actor in a Leading Role: Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown) — His SAG Award win for portraying Bob Dylan makes him the strongest contender.

Actor in a Supporting Role: Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain) — His SAG Award win gives him a solid edge in this category.

Actress in a Leading Role: Demi Moore (The Substance) — With her SAG Award win and critical acclaim, she stands out as the favorite.

Actress in a Supporting Role: Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez) — Her SAG Award win makes her the leading pick.

Directing: Anora — Having secured both the Producers Guild and Directors Guild Awards, Anora is the frontrunner.

Best Picture: Sean Baker (Anora) — His Directors Guild Award win makes him the favorite in this category.

As said before, those who have won SAG Awards or BAFTAs are usually the favorites to go on a win an Oscar.

Gemini

Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT had very similar answers when it came to picking an Oscar Award winner.

Here are Gemini’s picks:

Actor in a Leading Role: Timothée Chalamet ("A Complete Unknown") and Adrien Brody ("The Brutalist") are leading the pack.

Actor in a Supporting Role: Kieran Culkin ("A Real Pain") is a strong frontrunner.

Actress in a Leading Role: Demi Moore ("The Substance") is generating a lot of buzz OR Mikey Madison ("Anora") is also a strong contender.

Actress in a Supporting Role: Zoe Saldaña ("Emilia Pérez") is coming up as a very strong contender.

Best Picture: Based on current trends, "Emilia Pérez" appears to be the most likely winner.

Directing: Brady Corbet ("The Brutalist") is a strong favorite.

Grok

Grok provided the most human answers when it comes to predicting an Oscar Award winner.

According to Elon Musk and his xAI team, Grok is supposedly the best-performing AI model of the moment.

So, let’s see what results it has for us:

Actor in a Leading Role: “This is shaping up to be a tight race, but I’m leaning toward Adrien Brody for The Brutalist.”

Actor in a Supporting Role: “Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain feels like the frontrunner here.”

Actress in a Leading Role: “This category is a nail-biter. Demi Moore in The Substance has the edge for me.”

Actress in a Supporting Role: “Zoe Saldaña in Emilia Pérez looks strong here.”

Best Picture: “This is wide open, but I’m predicting Anora might edge out of the pack.”

Directing: “Sean Baker for Anora is my pick.”