According to Axios, the current election cycle marks the first in which artificial intelligence is both a dominant policy debate and a widely deployed political weapon. The piece describes political operatives using AI agents to mass-produce simulated voters and test-message ads before reaching real audiences, alongside persuasion bots trained to hold long, candidate-voice conversations with voters. It notes research finding that a bot which discloses it is a bot can persuade voters just as effectively as one posing as human, while other researchers question whether AI persuasion truly scales compared to cheaper disinformation floods.
