Tech

Microsoft Bing correctly predicted almost every Oscar winner

birdman best picture oscar 2015
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Neil Patrick Harris wasn't the only one who made some Oscar predictions that turned out correct; Microsoft's Bing prediction engine correctly predicted all but four Oscar winners.

Bing correctly predicted 84 percent of the 87th Academy Awards, according to The Verge, including best supporting actor and actress, best actor, best actress, best director, and even best picture.

The winners it missed? Bing incorrectly predicted best original screenplay, best animated feature, best original score, and best film editing, though it had each of the actual winners as the second most-likely to win.

That's still pretty impressive, but it's actually slightly down from last year's Bing's predictions, where the search engine correctly guessed 21 of the 24 Oscar winners.

Bing's prediction engine, which has been making predictions ranging from World Cup winners to NFL game outcomes, is headed up by Microsoft researcher David Rothschild. Rothschild, who famously called all 50 states in the 2012 US election, shared the outcome of his ballot predictions via Twitter on Sunday night.

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Steven Tweedie
Steven Tweedie is a Deputy Executive Editor at Business Insider. He launched the Business News desk in early 2020 and helped grow it into the Trending and Tech News desk, a fast-paced reporting powerhouse that tackles the biggest business and tech stories of the day in an approachable way. He now oversees the Business News desk, Corporate team, and Weekend desk. He works out of the New York newsroom and helps train fellows and new hires at all experience levels in addition to his daily editing duties.He began his career covering app startups and gadgets on the Technology desk at BI. His past reporting and scoops have been cited or syndicated by publications including the WSJ, Associated Press, CNN, Bloomberg, The Guardian, and Forbes. He attended the University of Michigan, where he studied economics and writing, and now lives in Astoria.Have a news tip? Email Steven from a non-work email at stweedie@jkmperu.comFollow him on and Threads for the latest.