AI Tried to Play Scrabble With Us
Artificial intelligence can write essays, compose music, generate artwork, plan trips, summarize research, and answer questions on almost any topic you can imagine.
So naturally, a question occurred to me.
Could it play Scrabble?
Not analyze language. Not explain word origins. Actually play the game.
That’s what Erin and I set out to discover in this week’s episode of AI for Everyone.
The Experiment
We set up a Scrabble board and decided to let AI help choose moves.
On the surface, this seems like the kind of thing AI should be great at. After all, language models are built on massive amounts of text. They understand vocabulary, grammar, and patterns in words.
So you might expect AI to be a pretty formidable Scrabble opponent.
But there’s an interesting twist.
AI doesn’t actually think about words the way humans do.
Humans know words because we’ve learned them, used them, heard them spoken, and seen them in context over time. When we look at a rack of Scrabble tiles, our brains start searching through real words we’ve encountered in life.
AI, on the other hand, is predicting patterns in language based on probability. It doesn’t have a mental dictionary the way we do. It doesn’t visualize a board. And it doesn’t inherently understand the rules of Scrabble unless those rules are specifically structured for it.
So what happened when we asked it for a move?
Let’s just say some of the suggestions were… creative.
When AI Gets Weird
At one point the board contained words that looked vaguely plausible but were clearly not English.
Another time it recommended combinations that simply couldn’t be played on the board.
And occasionally it did come up with a real word that actually worked.
But the overall experience revealed something fascinating.
AI is incredibly powerful at generating language, but structured games with rigid constraints are a different challenge entirely.
That doesn’t mean AI can’t play board games. In fact, specialized AI systems have famously mastered games like chess and Go. But those systems are designed specifically for those games.
A general-purpose AI tool—the kind most people use today—is built for conversation and creativity, not tile placement strategy.
Why This Matters
The point of this experiment wasn’t really about Scrabble.
It was about understanding the difference between what AI is great at and what it still struggles with.
We’re living in a moment where people often assume AI is either magical or terrifyingly powerful. In reality, it’s something much more interesting.
It’s a tool.
An incredibly capable one—but still a tool.
Sometimes it will amaze you with what it can do. Other times it will produce nonsense that makes you laugh.
And honestly, that’s part of the fun.
AI Should Be Explored, Not Feared
One of the goals of AI for Everyone is to help people see AI in a more approachable way.
You don’t have to be a programmer or a technologist to experiment with it.
You can use it to write a story.
Create art.
Generate a song.
Plan a trip.
Or apparently… attempt to play Scrabble.
Some experiments work beautifully.
Others turn into hilarious disasters.
Both are valuable.
Because every time you try something new with AI, you learn a little more about how it works—and how it can fit into your life.
Watch the Experiment
If you want to see how the Scrabble match actually turned out—and some of the strange word suggestions AI came up with—you can watch the full episode here:
🎥 Watch the episode:
aishow.io/youtube
🎧 Listen to the podcast:
Apple Podcasts: aishow.io/podcast
Spotify: aishow.io/spotify
Want to Start Exploring AI Yourself?
If you’re curious about AI but not sure where to begin, I created a simple starter guide to help.
Download the Free AI Starter Kit
It walks through practical ways everyday people are already using AI right now.
No technical background required.
Sometimes AI writes poetry
Sometimes it generates stunning artwork.
And sometimes it suggests Scrabble words that don’t exist in any dictionary on Earth.
Either way, it’s worth exploring.
Did you know? Joel delivers AI keynotes for organizations that want their teams to actually understand and use AI. Learn more.
