Plonking down a premium for a window seat on a flight or paying extra to get a better view of your favorite artist on stage or your favorite sports team play has always been a deeply personal, sometimes emotionally charged thing. So is getting fleeced on the price of tickets.

Some people have a preference for a specific section and even a certain seat, and stadiums have been known to run incentives and offer deals to people who are willing to sit in the nosebleeds or on the hard bleacher seats. 

But maybe there's a better way to get the best seat in the house without paying extra or leaving the event with a sore backside and barren bank account. 

Here's how to use AI to get a seat you love without the higher price. 

Home team advantage

You may know your local stadium like the back of your baseball glove. You may have intimate knowledge of Dodger Stadium, or you may have attended every tour that came through your hometown for your favorite artist. But sometimes a new venue can catch you off guard. 

AI tools like Google's Gemini can review the seating charts and real-world images taken by people who have experienced the vantage point from which you might be about to see a show or sporting event, giving you a better idea of the options you didn't know you had.

I tasked Gemini with generating a recommendation for the world's greatest snacking baseball fan and to prioritize the ability to eat at least four hot dogs and buy multiple beers without missing too much action, all while staying under a $40 ticket price. 

It told me the exact section I should sit in -- the left field pavilion, specifically sections 301 through 315 -- and why, citing its proximity to food, being right on top of the outfield and the cost of tickets.

It then gave me an image of what my view could look like from that section.

It capped off its recommendation with "pro tips for the high-volume snacker," like sitting in an aisle seat and having access to the Centerfield Plaza with the widest variety of craft beers and specialty foods.

I did have to prompt the tool again to give me specific seat recommendations, though, and it told me to sit in the Reserve Level, Section 4, Row A, Seat 20. When you do this, just make sure you check the price is still within your budget.

You can use this trick for the upcoming FIFA World Cup, for which there are many remaining tickets on secondary sales markets in random sections of the stadiums across Mexico, Canada and the US.

Making the best of the leftovers

Even as artists are canceling shows due to sagging ticket sales, some events still sell out faster than a freshly minted TikTok influencer. Those times when you've waited too long to snag a "good" seat can cause panic, but AI tools like Anthropic's Claude can give you recommendations on the best options, even when you're not left with the pick of the litter. 

I tasked Claude with generating a recommendation for where to sit at an almost-sold-out show at the Globe Theatre in London on a specific date and time for the best seat still available at the lowest cost, without swerving into the standing-room-only lane.

After providing Claude AI with the most recent screenshots of the seating layout, including all the seats not currently available, it gave me a recommendation for which seats might be a good value and overlooked and which would give me the best possible point of view on the overall action.

It suggested the lower gallery side bays, with seats right at the stage corners, for the lowest-priced tier.

But while Claude delivered what I wanted to know, it also gave me its "honest take" that upper gallery seats are still the best pick.

It also gave me a helpful note about the cast of the show potentially spilling out into the audience on the lower edges, which would be valuable information for people who love being close to the action and for others who would rather not be roped into the chaos.

Avoiding disaster

While the debate about whether the window seat or the aisle seat is superior rages on, the dreaded fate of sitting in the middle seat armrest war zone is a harsh reality we have all faced on planes at least once.

But there is so much more to fear when selecting where to sit on that large metal tube that hurtles through time and space we call an airplane and so much more to gain by having detailed information about the layout, make and model of the plane's interior.

I asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude to review the most popular plane models and makes for my preferred airline on both domestic and international routes. I asked each AI to give me a breakdown of the best, worst and most overlooked and underbooked seats on the planes to give me the best chance at having a pleasant flight without paying extra.

ChatGPT and Gemini gave confident recommendations based on user reviews and forum info, as well as details culled from the airline, while Claude returned a "sorry, can't know without more info" response. So instead, I asked Claude to critique the other two AI tools' responses and then gave them both another crack at it.

After Claude's critique, ChatGPT revised its overall recommendations for seats that come with perks without the extra fee, including the row of seats right behind the restrooms, the rows that have sides with only two seats instead of three and exit rows that are adjacent to door cutouts, which come with extra leg space.

Gemini did some editorializing after being questioned about the veracity of claims about specific seats by Claude's review and corrected some of the recommendations.

Nabbing a good seat without paying a premium is an always-evolving game of cat and mouse for the most comfortable experience. Remember to verify every recommendation with real, up-to-date seating info before making your purchase.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)