‘AI Could Be Interesting in Chess Education’: Vishy Anand Shares His View on AI’s Impact on the Game
On the sidelines of the Chennai Grandmasters 2025, chess legend Viswanathan Anand shared his perspective on how the growing wave of Artificial Intelligence could influence the sport.
Automation in chess is not new — as far back as 1912, Leonardo Torres Quevedo introduced El Ajedrecista, a machine capable of playing king-and-rook endgames against human opponents. This innovation paved the way for pioneers like Alan Turing, Claude Shannon, Dietrich Prinz, and Alick Glennie in the 1940s and 50s. By 1957, American Alex Bernstein’s program on the IBM 704 mainframe was already capable of solving complex chess problems.
The late 1950s marked a turning point, with Carnegie Mellon’s NSS program becoming the first to defeat a human player, albeit a novice. MIT’s breakthrough in the 1960s with MAC HACK VI made headlines as the first machine to beat a human at a State Championship.
Through the 1980s, rapid advancements strengthened chess programs to the point where, in 1988, a computer defeated Grandmaster Bent Larsen. By the 1990s, chess engines were strong enough to challenge — and even beat — legends like Judit Polgar, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, and Anand himself. The arrival of Deep Blue and Fritz firmly cemented computers as permanent fixtures in chess.
With AI now advancing at breakneck speed, its potential influence on the sport is under fresh debate. “In chess, computers became stronger than humans long before AI,” Anand pointed out. “So, I’m not sure what exactly AI is going to change in that sense. If AI is stronger than previous generation computers, then yes, but the next generation of players might also be stronger than the last.”
He added, “I think AI could be interesting in chess education and similar areas, but beyond that, I’m not certain for now.”
On Gukesh’s Future
Anand, India’s first World Chess Champion and a five-time title holder, also spoke about reigning champion Gukesh’s journey ahead. “I think ‘Mere Paas Panch Hai’ is a good starting point,” he joked, expressing confidence in the teenager’s path forward.
“Sport is evolving very fast — new formats, new challenges. I can share how I’ve handled situations if asked, but it’s their job to adapt it to their own game,” he explained. “We are not comparing the same thing anymore.”
Avoiding Over-Specialisation
Touching upon newer chess formats like Chess960, Anand warned against limiting oneself to a single format. “Players shouldn’t mentally rule out any format. You may not have great results every year across all formats, but you can’t rely only on one either,” he said, citing Gukesh’s recent struggles in classical chess at Romania.
“When one format isn’t going well, you should be able to compete in others. Maybe you won’t succeed, but it’s worth trying,” Anand advised. “I don’t see myself settling into one genre — and if I’m asking others to diversify, I must follow that myself.
