Political campaigns are increasingly using AI chatbots in text messages to conduct personalized voter conversations and collect data on voter concerns, with some companies aiming to work with over 100 campaigns this election cycle. While proponents say this makes campaigns more interactive and responsive, others raise ethical concerns about voter disclosure and the potential for AI to spread misinformation, especially as most states lack clear disclosure requirements.
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Sign up free →What happened: AI-powered platforms are now training bots to conduct personalized conversations with voters via text message, gathering data on voter concerns and shaping campaign messaging. Companies like Convos, which launched last year, are expanding rapidly—Convos helped 10 campaigns in 2024 and aims to work with over 100 campaigns this year, having reached roughly half that target so far. Vector Political has sent two and a half million text messages this year and conducted over 20,000 to 30,000 conversations.
Why it matters: Political text messaging has become one of the few direct mass-communication channels available to campaigns after phone banks declined and social media algorithms limit organic reach. However, some in the industry—including Josh Justice of Peerly and Nathan Rifkin of Scale to Win—argue that using generative AI to impersonate campaign voices without immediate disclosure to voters raises ethical concerns, especially while AI regulation is still being developed. Some states (North Dakota, California, New Jersey) are moving toward disclosure requirements, but most campaigns remain reluctant to publicize their use of AI, citing unclear public perception.
Why to watch: Republican campaigns are adopting AI text messaging faster than Democratic campaigns, partly because Democratic political debates center on AI's environmental and labor impact while Republican strategists focus on "winning with the tools that we have." Experts note that roughly 5–10% of people respond to political texts, and roughly 10–20% of those engage in 10 or more messages, suggesting that AI's ability to sustain longer conversations may reshape campaign efficiency.
Political text messaging emerged as a mass-communication channel in 2020 when traditional methods—phone banks, door-to-door canvassing, and social media—became less effective or fell out of favor. Unlike social media, text messaging reaches voters directly on their phones without competing for attention through algorithms. Now, generative AI is being applied to this channel to make responses faster, more personalized, and capable of sustaining longer voter conversations while collecting valuable data about voter concerns.
However, this expansion has surfaced a tension between campaign efficiency and voter trust. Proponents like Eric Wilson and Marty Santalucia argue that AI enables campaigns to listen and respond at unprecedented scale—Vector Political's 20,000 to 30,000 conversations this year far exceed what traditional volunteers could handle. At the same time, critics including Josh Justice and Nathan Rifkin warn that using AI without clear disclosure undercuts voter autonomy, especially when chatbots could spread false information or be manipulated into generating harmful statements in a candidate's voice. The regulatory landscape remains fragmented, with only a handful of states mandating disclosure, creating a window in which campaigns can experiment with minimal transparency.
The divergence between Republican and Democratic adoption may reflect broader political attitudes toward technology: Democratic platforms emphasize concerns about labor and environmental impact, while Republican strategists prioritize winning with available tools. As disclosure requirements tighten in some states and public perception remains uncertain, the long-term viability of AI text messaging will likely depend on whether campaigns voluntarily disclose their use and how voters respond to learning they have been conversing with bots.
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