How Political Campaigns Could Use AI to Listen, Engage, and Form Policy

The useful part

There are plenty of signs that AI will make all of our experiences of the US midterm elections worse. Meanwhile, candidates are missing a real opportunity to use AI to make campaigning better. The technology can help candidates listen more deeply to voters' concerns, engage constituents more inclusively, and formulate policy platforms that are more responsive to our input.

How it works

• There are vanishingly few examples of this in US politics, but groups in Japan, Scotland and the US's own academic and private institutions show how that could change.
• Users see evidence that the party is actually listening and might take action on their behalf.
• The party has rapidly risen to win 12 seats in the Diet, and is explicitly following in the footsteps of the civic hackers in Taiwan's "gov zero" movement, who won political influence in their fight for...
• City uses AI to analyze large datasets of stakeholder input.
• This one-to-many broadcasting is an uninspiring way to campaign, but not the only way.

What to take from it

Team Mirai grew adoption by providing a real incentive to engage: that talking to their AI interviewer does more than just posting on a platform such as Twitter/X or, equivalently, shouting into a void. We want big tech money out of politics, holding the AI companies accountable for the harm their models cause, taxing their revenues, and maybe even nationalizing them if the AI bubble bursts. Politicos are using AI deepfakes to spread lies.

Example or evidence

• CrownShy, a company funded in part by the Scottish government, is building a platform to bring the Platonic ideal of the town hall debate into the digital age.
• The Stanford-affiliated deliberation.io uses AI to facilitate structured dialogues among thousands of participants and has been piloted for public listening sessions by the city of Washington DC.
• Vesselin Bontchev • September 18, 2026 1:10 AM The "Team Mirai" ("Team Future") name might make sense to Japanese but to the rest of us in infosec, that's an unfortunate name and reminds us of the Mirai...
• Or it can facilitate many-to-many connections, engaging voters in deliberation about issues at scale.

Details worth keeping

Sanders, and originally appeared in The Guardian. Voters have anxiety about AI's impacts on the country. AI can help candidates connect one-to-one with as many people as possible.

Related coverage

• Npr: Data suggests many candidates are embracing AI this year to boost their image and portray their opponents unfavorably. But whether it will turn out voters remains unclear.
• Justsecurity: Tests of six popular AI models show how easily their election safeguards can be bypassed, and what companies, lawmakers, and civil society should be before November.
• Recruitingheadlines: AI has made it easier than ever for job seekers to tailor resumes, incorporate the right keywords, and turn their experience into polished application materials.
• Schneier: Earlier this month, Anthropic published a long report detailing all of the Claude misuses it detected.