Microsoft’s Bing Prediction engine strikes again

Jun 18, 2015 06:44 GMT  ·  By

The Bing Prediction engine developed by Microsoft makes the headline once again after having successfully forecast the winner of a competition based on a complicated algorithm that seems to get it right every single time.

This time, Bing guessed (if guess is the right word, given the fact that Bing has already correctly predicted the winners and/or finalists of several other contents) the winner of the 2015 NBA finals, naming the Golden State Warriors as the team to lift the trophy.

Truth is, Bing failed to correctly point to the other team playing the final, as it predicted that Atlanta would play against the Warriors in the final game of the competition. In reality, however, the Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in a 105-97 victory in Game 6 on Tuesday.

How does it do it?

In case you’re wondering how Bing Prediction actually works, it’s all based on an algorithm that analyzes statistics, social activity, and several other factors to determine the team with the biggest chances to win a certain competition.

It has already indicated the correct winner of several other competitions, including the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, this year’s Eurovision, Golden Globe Awards, and several others.

As far as the NBA season is concerned, Microsoft’s MSN has a more in-depth explanation of how Bing knew that the Golden State Warriors would win the finals:

“To calculate the odds, Bing’s prediction model uses historical team performance, head-to-head match-up statistics, data around home-court advantage, each team's combined post-season experience, year-over-year team composition, and numerous other factors similar to those used in Bing’s NCAA March Madness prediction model!”

If you want to see individual predictions for each game in the playoffs, they’re all available on Bing too, so just click this link to see them (remember that you must be using the US version of Bing).