Honestly what you describe as sending the conversation down a different direction to find common ground sounds like an Se-Fe user. It's not really about the prediction, moreso about trying to make a connection and keep the other person and yourself engaged.

I dont see the Ne-Fe users as the bad guy at all haha. It's really both can be used for good and bad. Now, there are some ENXPs that I can think of that make very slimy salesmen for the aforementioned reasons.

Intuition is the same thing at the end of the day. One is internal, one is external. Those acutely aware of all of the external possibilities are Ne users. And thus, that's why they tend to do that prediction thing. That seeing a conversation being able to go down many different routes.

I see Ni described as predictive a lot, but it's more like the Ni ti user will have a personal framework about how things in the world work and can be predictive in that sense like "all teachers that give multiple choice tests only are lazy, this professor gave a multiple choice only test , I bet he's lazy". The pattern for example is very personal first, then it's tested on a real thing (se) that's the Ni-Se axis. Jumping to conclusions gets thrown at Ni users quite a bit.

I see Ni simply put as "personal patterns". Ne as connecting external patterns. Of course everyone does both, but there tends to be preferences.