March Madness is upon us and Unanimous AI has once again filed its AI-optimized bracket. With the first two rounds behind us, this is a good time check in to see how a group of 30 basketball fans compare to the millions of brackets on ESPN.

The Swarm AI-optimized bracket is sitting in the 93rd percentile on ESPN headed into the Sweet 16, with 14 out of the 16 remaining teams correctly identified. Duke, the AI’s predicted champion, is still alive after a battle with UCF, along with its three other predicted Final Four teams. So, while anything can happen in March Madness, and the tournament thus far has been devoid of the momentous upsets we saw early on last year, the 2019 bracket is well-positioned for an encore of 2018’s 92nd percentile finish.

This performance represents a remarkable amplification of intelligence over the average bracket, which one would expect to find squarely in the 50th percentile. And yet, by turning those 30 people into a hybrid system, Swarm AI technology is able to produce expert-level results through the first two rounds. This suggests that swarming a small group of people in real-time is a more efficient way to amplify human intelligence than polling even a much larger group.

For example, ESPN averaged the 19 million individual brackets in their Tourney Challenge into the so-called “People’s Bracket”, which is determined by taking the most popular pick for every game. This Wisdom of the Crowds-style forecast required the input of over 19,000,000 people, and yet it is trailing our 30-person AI-optimized bracket.

For more on how our bracket was compiled, check out this interview with Gregg Willcox, Unanimous AI’s Director of Research and Development, on Bloomberg’s Tic Toc.

Want to learn more about our Swarm AI platform? Check out our TED talk…