Who's the next American Idol? Just ask Bing who is correct 90 percent of the time

By Daniel Rubino
last updated

Bing's prediction engine is a work in progress and Microsoft appears to be expanding the data-driven service.

Starting this morning, some users were noticing some predictions for the popular singing show appearing in Cortana's results for a search on American Idol.

For our attempt, we just typed in American Idol as a search topic and scrolling down will display the predictions on a separate card. A quicker way to see the results though is just by heading to this link in Bing. Alternatively, you can just head to https://www.bing.com/explore/predicts to see all of Bing's latest guesses at various categories. So far, Bing is predicting for the following events:

  • NBA Playoffs
  • The Voice
  • American Idol
  • Dancing with the Stars
  • English Premier League Games

So how good is Bing predictions? At this time, for American Idol, the service maintains a 90 percent accuracy rating. Not too shabby, for a computer!

Thanks, Srikanth R., and Ahmed A., for the tips!

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been here covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, Microsoft Surface, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics and ran the projectors at movie theaters, which has done absolutely nothing for his career.

27 Comments
  • Also predicting IPL games.. Isn't it?
  • Well most of them.... Wrong :D
  • Haha...
  • Why doesn't it work with Cortana? I only get web results.
  • Predicting IPL is shit.
  • Not interested in American idol
    Can BING predict the next GOP Presidential candidate who would happen to be the future US President?
  • Well there were Bing predictions for the midterms, so I assume they'll be back for this year's elections.
  • She also asking who I think will be eliminated
  • Me too! Twice!
  • Well I cant use Cortana on my Lumia 730 dual Sim windows 10 tp and its not avaliable in my country India :(
  • So use Bing. Problem solved. This is Bing Predictions, not Cortana ones.
  • Which is powered by Bing ;)
  • I didn't thought about that silly me.. Btw thank you bruh :)
  • Change your phone's location to US and be forever happy.
  • In windows 10 tp Cortana doesn't start it closes down. +Lumia 730
  • She does in mine and its the exact same phone bought in the exact same country and probably, price too. :P
  • Just ask Bing, which is correct 90 percent of the time.
  • Bing/Cortana is incorrect most of the time in IPL :D
  • My daughter is still reeling from Teanna's (from Jacksonville) elimination... Done with idol
  • NHL Playoffs, is it so hard?
  • Actually, yes. Do you even know the amount of complexity, machine learning, data analysis involved here? It's not like hitting a button, come on...
  • So given market share in Australia keeps growing and has almost broken 10% for WP, when are they going to add NRL and AFL predictions and make it only available via Cortana, so it helps the growth continue? I mean Foxtels biggest growth comes from exclusive sports coverage, and Aussies love sport, so having Cortana predictions and actually advertising it could actually generate some sales :)
  • "This feature isn't available yet in your country or region" - is the predictions website available only for UK and US?
  • Is there some actually useful scenario for this or just celebrity-nonsense and sports?
  • You can earn money by betting!
    Cortana: Your personal bettor. :P
  • For the 2 people who still watch American Idol
  • "Not too shabby, for a computer". :D