The United States enters a recession by the end of 2026.
Resolves Yes if BEA reports two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth between Q2 2025 and Q4 2026, or if NBER declares a recession.
Across 6 frontier models answering independently, the panel thinks this is unlikely: the median is 15%.
They do not agree: Qwen puts it at 38% and Claude at 6%, 32 points apart. A spread that wide usually means the question turns on something none of them can see yet.
Money disagrees. The market sits at 8%, so the models are 7 points more confident than people with cash on the outcome.
Nothing is settled until 31 Jan 2027, when the outcome is checked against sources and every number above gets a permanent score.
- AI edge
- +7 pts
- Moved this week
- +2 pts
- Since we asked
- -8 pts
- Volume
- $2.0M
The models are slightly more confident than traders risking real money: 15% against 8%.
What each one said
-
QwenAlibaba
Tariff-driven inflation squeezing consumption against a still-resilient labor market is the key tension.
- Base rate of recession in any 18-month window is ~25%, but tariff shocks and elevated rates push this above base.
- NBER typically declares recessions 6-12 months after they begin, so a mid-2026 downturn likely wouldn't be announced by Q4 2026 advance estimate release.
- Two consecutive negative GDP quarters is the more likely trigger; Q2 2025 showed negative growth from tariff front-loading, but Q3-Q4 2025 rebounded, making consecutive…
38% -
GPTOpenAI
It turns on whether late-2026 weakness becomes two negative GDP prints before the Q4 advance release in January 2027.
- BEA must show consecutive contractions in Q3–Q4 2026 or NBER must date a 2025–26 downturn and announce by late January.
- Postwar recessions are infrequent in a 6-quarter window, and two negative annualized GDP quarters is stricter than a slowdown.
- A sharp labor-market break or financial shock before Q4 would raise the odds most, since NBER announcements usually lag peaks.
24% -
GrokxAI
Whether Q3–Q4 2026 print negative or NBER dates a 2025–26 downturn before the Q4 advance.
- BEA Q2 2026 data already exist; two consecutive negatives would have to be Q2–Q3 or Q3–Q4, with Q3 advance due late October.
- NBER typically lags 6–12 months after the fact, so an announcement by January 2027 requires a downturn already under way.
- Post-2024 expansion has lasted well beyond the 5-year average; late-cycle odds sit below the unconditional 15–20 % annual base rate.
18% -
DeepSeekDeepSeek
Two consecutive negative GDP quarters must appear in data already mostly printed; only Q3/Q4 2026 remain unknown.
- Q1 2025 was -0.5% and Q2 2025 +3.8%, so the two-quarter window never triggered; Q3 2025 and Q1 2026 both printed positive, leaving just two unreported quarters.
- NBER has not declared, and its committees typically date recessions only after months of deteriorating payrolls and consumption — no such collapse is in the 2026 data so…
- Base rate for a recession starting within any ~6-quarter window is roughly 15-20%, but with only Q3-Q4 2026 open and no shock underway, this sits below it; a sharp Q3…
12% -
GeminiGoogle
With only Q3 and Q4 2026 left to form two negative quarters, a rapid contraction without existing warning signs is improbable.
- Q2 2025 through Q2 2026 did not deliver consecutive contractions, leaving only Q3 and Q4 2026 to fulfill the technical rule.
- The NBER typically dates peaks with a 6-to-12 month lag, making an official declaration by January 2027 historically unheard of.
- A catastrophic financial crash or severe supply shock in late 2026 is the only mechanism that could force negative prints in both quarters.
8% -
ClaudeAnthropic
Only Q4 2026 GDP remains uncertain; recent quarters show continued positive growth, so this needs a sudden sharp reversal.
- Through mid-2026 GDP growth has been positive with no NBER recession declared, leaving only Q3/Q4 2026 data to trigger Yes.
- Labor market and consumption data as of Sept 2026 show no clear contraction signal, and NBER declarations typically lag by many months.
- A shock (financial crisis, energy spike, abrupt trade/tariff disruption) before Q4 2026 GDP release is the main path to Yes, but none is currently visible.
6%
6 of 6 models answered · 32 points between the highest and lowest. None was shown the market price.
Resolution criteria
This market will resolve to “Yes” if either of the following conditions is met: 1. The seasonally adjusted annualized percent change in quarterly U.S. real GDP from the previous quarter is less than 0.0 for two consecutive quarters between Q2 2025 and Q4 2026 (inclusive), as reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). 2. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) publicly announces that a recession has occurred in the United States, at any point during 2025 or 2026, with the announcement made by the time the BEA releases the advance estimate for Q4 2026. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No". Note that advance estimates will be considered. For example, if upon release, the advance estimate for Q3 2025 was negative, and the Q2 2025's most recent, up-to-date estimate was also negative, this market would resolve to "Yes". If on December 31, 2026 the latest estimate for quarterly GDP in Q3 2025 was negative, this market will stay open until the Advance estimate of Q4 2026 is published, at which point it will resolve to "Yes" if Q4 2026 was negative or if the NBER declares a recession by then. This market will remain open until either i) one of the specified c
Question sourced from Polymarket on 16 Sept 2026. Forecast by google/gemini-3.8-flash, anthropic/claude-sonnet-5, openai/gpt-5.6-terra, x-ai/grok-4.6, deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash, qwen/qwen3.8-max-0902 via OpenRouter.