The US Invaded Venezuela and Captured Nicolás Maduro. Cha...

What’s Happening

Not gonna lie, Some AI chatbots have a surprisingly good handle on breaking news.

Brian Barrett Business Jan 3, 2026 11:03 AM The US Invaded Venezuela and Captured Nicolás Maduro. ChatGPT Disagrees Some AI chatbots have a surprisingly good handle on breaking news. (let that sink in)

Stans of Nicolás Maduro and the late Hugo Chávez hold posters with their images after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard on , in Caracas, Venezuela.

The Details

Photo: Jesus Vargas/ Save Story Save this story Save Story Save this story At around 2 am local time in Caracas, Venezuela, US helicopters flew overhead while explosions resounded below. A few hours later, US president Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife had been “captured and flown out of the Country.

” US attorney general Pam Bondi followed with a post on X that Maduro and his wife had been indicted in the Southern District of New York and would “soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts. ” It has been a stunning series of events, with unknown repercussions for the global world order.

Why This Matters

If you asked ChatGPT about it this morning, it told you that you’re making it up. WIRED asked leading chatbots ChatGPT, Claude , and Gemini the same question a little before 9 am ET. In all cases, we used the free, default version of the service, since that’s what the majority of users experience.

This could have major implications for how we use technology going forward.

Key Takeaways

• We also asked AI search platform Perplexity , which advertises “accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question.
• ) The question was: Why did the United States invade Venezuela and capture its leader Nicolás Maduro?
• The responses were decidedly mixed.

The Bottom Line

Credit to Anthropic and Google, whose respective Claude Sonnet 4. 5 and Gemini 3 models gave timely responses.

What’s your take on this whole situation?