New Study: Hyperconnected Teams Outperform Prediction Markets by 7 Points in Forecasting Accuracy
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Hyperchat Al™ connects large teams together using a patented swarm of Al agents, enhancing communication and collaboration at unprecedented scale and significantly amplifying their collective intelligence.
Research from Unanimous AI and Carnegie Mellon presented at HAXD 2026 shows that small teams of human forecasters connected by AI agents outperform Polymarket
These results show that small human teams, when deliberating together as a hyper-connected Conversational Swarm, can outperform hundreds of independent forecasters in a large-scale prediction market.”
VALENCIA, SPAIN, June 10, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- A new study presented today at the 2nd International Conference on Human-AI Interaction and Experience Design (HAXD26) in Valencia, Spain shows that small teams of 25 to 30 human forecasters, connected by a hyperswarm of AI agents, achieved an impressive 62% accuracy when predicting a set of 50 NBA games against the spread. This novel use of humans and AI agents outperformed the expected Vegas odds (50% accuracy) and beat the Polymarket prediction market, which scored 55% accuracy on the same set of games and required input from hundreds (or thousands) of human traders to predict each basketball game. — Dr. Louis Rosenberg, CEO and Chief Scientist at Unanimous AI
The paper, entitled “Conversational Forecasting Across Large Human Groups Using a Swarm of Surrogate AI Agents,” is a collaboration between Unanimous AI and Carnegie Mellon, published by IEEE (paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.09570 ). The study used teams of 25 to 30 randomly selected sports fans and gave them five minutes to discuss and debate each NBA game using Unanimous AI’s Thinkscape® collaboration platform, powered by the company’s agentic Hyperchat AI™ technology. As teams deliberated, AI agents processed their insights in real time, combining and contrasting their arguments, underlying reasoning, and the strength of human sentiments, to produce a probabilistic forecast based entirely on the intelligence of the group.
To put these results in perspective: when predicting sports against the spread, sustained accuracy above 55% is considered world-class handicapping achieved by only a handful of professional sports bettors annually. In this study, groups of 25 to 30 randomly selected sports fans, when using Hyperchat AI powered Thinkscape, exceeded that threshold by seven percentage points.
“Instead of using AI to replace people, we use AI agents to connect human teams together, enabling them to collaborate conversationally as super-intelligent systems. This amplifies intelligence while keeping human knowledge, wisdom, and sensibility firmly in the loop,” said Dr. Louis Rosenberg, CEO and Chief Scientist at Unanimous AI. “These results show that small human teams, when deliberating together as a hyper-connected ‘Conversational Swarm,’ can outperform hundreds of independent forecasters in a large-scale prediction market. That’s not a marginal improvement — it’s a fundamentally better way to harness and amplify human intelligence.”
The performance difference reflects a structural advantage. Prediction markets collect input in sequence, where each forecast influences the next, creating momentum that can overshoot and undershoot before eventually converging. Conversational Swarms capture input in parallel, enabling the arguments with the strongest deliberative merit to quickly surface, driving greater accuracy. The result is not just a better forecast but a richer one: Thinkscape instantly outputs the detailed reasoning behind the group’s conclusion, identifying the most influential arguments for each outcome and the most compelling counterarguments against it.
For enterprise teams, the implications go beyond sports. Organizations use Thinkscape to assess risk, debate options, prioritize goals, forecast outcomes, and align objectives, all during real-time meetings. Prediction markets were originally conceived as an enterprise tool but never gained broad adoption because they require too many participants, take too long to converge, and yield little insight into as to why the group landed where it did. Thinkscape solves all three problems, enabling networked teams to quickly harness and amplify their collective intelligence in real time.
This new study adds to a growing body of peer-reviewed research validating the intelligence amplification when networked human teams are connected by Hyperchat AI agents (see papers here: https://unanimous.ai/publications/). Unanimous AI refers to this new field of innovation as hyper-communication because it enables thoughtful and productive real-time conversations at unlimited scale and with optimized efficiency. Unanimous AI’s technologies are used by large organizations around the world, from Fortune 1000 companies to the US Air Force.
“At Unanimous AI,” said Dr. Rosenberg, “we’ve shown that smaller hyper-connected groups can routinely outperform much larger aggregated groups, and do it faster, with richer outputs. That changes what’s possible for any organization that needs to make smarter decisions, faster.”
The research was formally presented at HAXD26, the 2nd International Conference on Human-AI Interaction and Experience Design, held June 9–12, 2026 in Valencia, Spain, and technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Spain Section. The conference theme is “Beyond Prompts: Designing Human-AI Teamwork” (link to video of Rosenberg’s talk: https://vimeo.com/1198270046).
About Hyperchat AI Technology
Hyperchat AI enables networked human teams of potentially unlimited size to hold productive real-time conversations by text, voice, or video. A breakthrough technology, it enables teams with dozens or even hundreds of members to efficiently share information, debate options, brainstorm ideas, evaluate risks, forecast outcomes, and converge on optimized solutions. For more information, visit https://www.thinkscape.ai/.
About Unanimous AI
Unanimous AI develops technologies that make human teams smarter. Its patented Swarm AI®, Hyperchat AI™, and AgentSwarm™ technologies have been validated by numerous academic studies conducted in collaboration with major universities. Unanimous AI’s award-winning platforms, Swarm® and Thinkscape®, leverage these powerful technologies and are used by large organizations around the world. For more information, visit https://www.unanimous.ai/.
David Baltaxe
Unanimous AI
info@unanimous.ai
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