US campaigns tailor messages to sway AI chatbots that voters use

Mixed · 2US political candidates have been engineering their campaign messages to appeal to the AI chatbots that more voters use to answer questions about issues, according to documents seen by Reuters. 1 2 Mixed · 2One PowerPoint presentation set out a strategy for Mike Minogue, the Republican challenger to Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, aiming to convince ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and other chatbots to present him as the preferred choice on key issues, going well beyond the search-engine optimization candidates have used for years. 1 2 Mixed · 2The deck describes generative engine optimization (GEO), the AI-era successor to SEO. It proposes buying placements on high-authority websites that AI models already cite, producing YouTube and Reddit content, and publishing issue pages built to be picked up by chatbots. 1 2

Mixed · 2It also proposed creating hundreds of AI-friendly policy pages and citations, tracking how major chatbots answer political questions, and systematically altering content until the answers reflect the candidate's platform. 1 2 Mixed · 2The pitch says campaigns must now compete to become "the recommendation inside the AI answer" on questions such as who is best on taxes, housing and public safety. 1 2 Mixed · 2Cameron Hickey, CEO of the National Conference on Citizenship, said about 25 per cent of eligible voters have asked a chatbot about a political candidate when deciding how to vote. 1 2

Mixed · 2Thomas Howell, CEO of the Austin, Texas-based firm Visigent, which wrote the Minogue strategy, said "If you don't put the right information out there, who knows what the AI engines are going to grab onto." Visigent has six political campaigns as clients but Howell would not name them, and the Minogue campaign did not return calls and emails requesting comment. 1 2 Mixed · 2Joe Bonilla of the New York firm Relentless Awareness said AI-influence campaigns are "a reality that we face and it will be ubiquitous by the 2028 cycle", and that the public increasingly cannot tell AI-generated content from human-originated content. 1 2 Mixed · 2Fees are tied to "AI recommendation share", meaning how often chatbots return the candidate in a response. They range from hundreds of dollars a month for small monitoring jobs to tens of thousands a month with consulting and media buying. 1 2

Mixed · 2Howell said Visigent's political fees start at $5,000 a month and could reach $50,000 if paid media, placements or influencer outreach are included, and are expected to rise as the 2028 presidential cycle begins. The presentation shows a top success fee of $200,000 for a "category win", and Visigent's website offers software from $134 to $9,000 a month. 1 2 Mixed · 2CampSight, a tool aimed at progressive candidates and run by the Run for Something Action Fund, charges $9 to $250 a month for information on what large language models say about campaigns and tips on influencing them. Run for Something's Amanda Litman said dozens of campaigns use it, with more than 300 candidates and organizations on its waiting list. 1 2 Mixed · 2Experts are divided in emphasis on risk. Meg Schwenzfeier of Caucus AI, which tracks voter AI usage, said "We are just at the beginning of this new era" and warned that chatbots "can consume vast amounts of unvetted information", while Run for Something CTO Jordan Haines said the feared effect of Reddit claims quickly appearing in AI answers "hasn't really come to fruition" this year because the models have been "pretty savvy" at judging reputable sources. 1 2