From congressional and state campaigns to even local races, candidates have embraced artificial intelligence tools to improve their campaigns in a variety of ways.

When generative AI (artificial intelligence) exploded on the scene in late 2022, it was a tipping point that launched an explosion of innovation and creative tools.

A primary use of AI is to enhance content creation. This typically includes writing or enhancing social media posts, advertising copy, email newsletters, and website material. Many political campaigns and consultants today are using generative AI.

Wait, what is generative AI? It’s a type of technology that helps create text, images, voice, and even music. It’s like having a smart writer or artist on your computer who can come up with new and original things by learning from lots of examples. Just like you might learn to draw by looking at many pictures, generative AI learns from a massive set of training data and then uses that information to make its own unique creations.

AI is evolving and upgrading rapidly. It’s a bit like how the Internet started evolving in the late 1900s, but on a much faster scale.

Understanding ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a generative AI model developed by OpenAI. It is designed to understand and generate human-like text. Based on user input, or prompts, it generates coherent and contextually relevant responses in a conversational format. During a conversation, ChatGPT remembers the conversation history along with the current user prompt to predict and generate the next logical response.

While it may seem intelligent, ChatGPT and other generative AI tools do not possess true understanding or intelligence. Instead, it generates responses, or outputs, that are based on patterns it has learned through its training data.

In its most basic form, ChatGPT is easy to use. Here’s an example of how it works:

1. Setting the Stage: Start by giving ChatGPT a prompt. For instance, let’s say you want to brainstorm ideas about a specific campaign topic. You may want to begin with an explanation of what you are looking for. “Assume the role of a political advisor. Here are the basic points of our campaign platform for [issue type].” Then include an overview of a specific issue and your position on it. You may want to go into some detail on this.
2. Guiding the AI: You input a prompt like, “Give me 5 ideas for a blog post about [issue].”
3. AI Output: ChatGPT processes your prompt and uses its knowledge to craft five unique ideas for your blog post, based on the earlier information you provided. This provides you with a variety of concepts to consider.

Sample Prompts:

• Draft Campaign Updates: “Write a social media post about our stance on education reform.”
• Tailor Messaging: “Here is our issue position: [Add your text.] Craft a message for suburban voters emphasizing our commitment to [issue].”
• Polish Communication: “Edit this email to make it more persuasive and impactful. Our audience is voters who [add detail].”

Most AI tools use a similar prompting method, though some may include form fields instead.

While AI can provide valuable assistance, the user is ultimately accountable. AI should be utilized as a valuable tool rather than a substitute for real voices and opinions.

There are new AI tools and applications being launched every month. Some focus on text; others, like Midjourney, can be used to create unique images. There are even applications for video and audio use.

Enhancing your campaign content with AI

There are many ways that AI can elevate your campaign content. Here are some ideas:

• Content Generation: AI can be prompted to generate or rewrite social media posts, press releases, brochure text, campaign website copy, phone scripts, canvassing scripts, and more. Beyond text, you can prompt the output to include such things as emojis and hashtags.
• Cultivating Ideas: Based on your prompts, the AI can generate creative ideas that your team can expand upon. This requires prompts that encourage the AI to brainstorm ideas related to your campaign’s themes, issues, and events.
• Optimizing Content: Refine your content by providing specific guidelines and objectives for improvement. For example, you can instruct the AI to write or rewrite content to specific readability levels, grammatical standards, and stylistic preferences. One tip is to instruct the AI not only to suggest specific edits but to explain why it did so.
• Personalizing Material: You can take your existing content and prompt AI to modify it to appeal more to a specific demographic. For example, you may want to refine your health care information for senior citizens so that it focuses on aspects that apply to the elderly.

In more advanced uses, an AI can be primed by providing it with large amounts of data. This may include campaign content, speeches, interview transcripts, and social media posts. From that material, the tool learns the nuances of tone and style. This enables it to create content that sounds more like the candidate.

An AI can write well and can come across as authoritative. But it sometimes lacks the warmth of a human writer. This can lead to content that’s technically accurate but just feels hollow. AI generated content also has the tendency to repeat phrases or ideas.

Anything that an AI assists in creating should always be carefully reviewed and edited for accuracy, tone, and consistency.

Local candidates often need help writing

Many of our clients have two main issues when coming up with content for their campaign websites. The first is coming up with introductory text to introduce themselves to voters.

The second is coming up with a candidate biography. Some clients tend to add either a bully pointed resume or a personal story that neither ties in why the candidate is running or gives reasons why a voter should support them.

Fortunately, with the right information, generative AI can help candidates put together a good bio and letter of introduction. There are links below to our own tools that can help with the process.

While an AI can write well and with seeming confidence, it sometimes lacks the warmth that real human writers possess. This can potentially lead to content that’s technically accurate but emotionally hollow.

Anything that an AI assists in creating should always be carefully reviewed and edited for accuracy, tone, and consistency.

Empowering your visual identity with AI

AI tools can create and improve images with ever-increasing skill. Popular AI image tools today include Midjourney and DALL-E. Here are some ways that AI images can be incorporated into your campaign:

• Issue Illustration and Visual Representation: Use AI images to distill complex policy issues into accessible infographics and visuals. This can help ensure that readers will comprehend complex information.
• Social Media Graphics: Create graphics that help amplify core messaging and improve audience engagement.
• Comparative Imagery: Side-by-side visuals can be used to outline the contrasts between campaign positions and those held by opponents.

Notice that we did not include the use of generated images of people, faces, or specific locales in our recommendations. AI-generated faces of individuals, real or fake, may tarnish a campaign’s credibility.

Unauthorized usage or a lack of disclosure of AI-generated or manipulated photographs could also pose issues. There may be ethical concerns about privacy or the alteration of people’s likenesses. Legal and copyright issues are another risk, especially if the AI was trained on copyrighted content.

A well-balanced use of AI-generated imagery is recommended. This means combining both AI and human creativity to produce visually appealing material.

Note that AI-generated material might not fully replace the skills of experienced graphic designers or capture the proper emotions or context.

Political data analysis

AI is great at data analysis and predictive modeling. Here are a few ways to apply AI for analysis:

• Data-Driven Insights: Provide relevant datasets, such as documents, reports, and public sentiments that relate to policies. The AI then analyzes this data to spot important patterns and trends. This analysis can be used in a variety of ways, such as establishing a candidate’s policy stances.

• Harvesting Ideas: Crowdsource policy ideas by analyzing social media conversations, public opinions, and policy discussions. Have the AI identify commonly discussed policy concepts, voter concerns, and general sentiment.
• Opposition Analysis: Input your opponents’ speeches and written materials for analysis. Task the AI to identify inconsistencies, patterns, and potential weaknesses in the text. This can help you uncover strategic insights.

Keep in mind that AI-generated output might occasionally miss the mark. It may also lack the contextual understanding that comes from human intuition and experience.

Other creative uses

With the right resources, you can expand AI’s creative roles in ways beyond text and images. For example, AI-powered chatbots could be created with conversational flows and responses that cater to different types of inquiries. The AI learns from the conversations and learns to communicate better.

As mentioned above, there are AI video creation, transcription, and editing tools out there. Some can translate audio files to text. Other tools, like Grammarly, assist in writing and editing copy.

AI can be leveraged for targeted advertising with the use of audience information. It analyzes the data to recommend ad content and messaging strategies that will resonate with the audience.

There are almost endless ways that the technology can be used. New tools are released continuously, each with different features, capabilities, and price points.

And while AI has already made an impact on our general lives, there are serious issues concerning data privacy and the ethical use of AI technology in politics.

AI and deepfakes

The rise of deepfakes and manipulated content is a growing concern. It’s often hard enough to believe what politicians say, but adding a mix of manipulated and fake material into the political discourse can only make things worse.

• Images: AI-generated images can be realistic but raise authenticity concerns. Misuse can spread misinformation and even manipulate public perception.
• Video: Deepfake videos convincingly manipulate faces and statements. They can spread false information and damage reputations. For example, imagine a deepfake video altering a candidate’s speech to portray them advocating for policies they do not support.
• Audio: AI can synthesize a person’s speech from just a sample recording. This technology can be used to make deceptive audio content.

As of this writing, the industry still anticipates guidance on the boundaries of generative AI, including any requirements to disclose the use of AI content. Until then, those who use the tools are left to determine their ethical use. Our recommendation is to not rely too heavily on these platforms. We don’t advise using technology to fabricate voices or generate realistic images. If you do, be careful. In every case, the trust of voters should be considered.

As with any technology, there will be bad actors. But addressing the risks and emphasizing ethical application will help ensure that these tools are used properly.

• Campaign Letter and Email Generator
• Political Brochure Content Generator
• Social Media Post Generator
• Content Analysis Tool
• Voter/Issue Analysis Tool
• Resume to Bio Converter
• And more!

OnlineCandidateResources.com provides resources, creative templates, and tools for political campaigns.