is dramatically lowering the cost of political advertising, allowing campaigns to churn out attack ads, memes and other targeted messages at a pace that would have been prohibitively expensive just a few years ago.
In the , campaign operatives can now use generative AI to produce in minutes or hours what once required days by a team of writers, voice talent, video shoots and production teams.
The shift is turning political creative from an expensive campaign asset into something much more affordable and closer to disposable content, potentially giving candidates and outside groups the ability to flood voters with more messages.
While the exact number is difficult to identify, the ad-tracking firm AdImpact had identified 29 campaign ads in federal and gubernatorial contests that disclosed using AI content, as of two weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Wesleyan Media Project, which also counted ads that did not make AI disclosures, has identified at least 164 AI-influenced ads this cycle.
But the jury is still out on whether the use of AI for campaign messaging can help produce the ultimate objective: an election victory.
“It certainly allows you to produce more content in varying styles and more cost effective,” veteran Republican consultant Jesse Hunt told Fox News Digital, as he pointed to the creative and economic appeals of using AI in political advertising.
Democratic strategist Chris Moyer said that “AI gives campaigns more tools for less cost. So there is a democratizing of the tools that campaigns used to have to spend valuable resources on….You can get access to things with a smaller budget.”
Will Ritter, a longtime Republican ad maker and media and political strategist, told Fox News Digital that the creative advertising and political strategy agency he co-founded, Poolhouse, “went from last cycle doing basically doing nothing with AI to most of our ads now have some AI component.”
“The good news is that its really cool technology. It allows a lot of people to make stuff. You can make almost anything,” Ritter said.
But he added, “You still need to able to know what youre doing with the tools.”
Pointing to his agency, Ritter noted “we have professionals who know how to use and integrate them, and they also know the point of this is to have a good ad that can be done faster and cheaper now but still maintains the main point, which is to communicate a message, not to show off cool visual tech.”
Campaign veterans say that if you’re not using AI to produce messaging content and other key tasks, including voter outreach, you are already behind the eight ball, and that will only increase going forward.
“We are running the most organized and sophisticated congressional campaign in the country, and we utilize every legitimate tool that helps our team improve productivity. Any campaign that doesnt would be foolish,” Ciro Riccardi, a top campaign adviser for Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, told Fox News Digital.
FOX NEWS POLL: VOTERS QUESTION WHETHER AIS PROMISE OUTWEIGHS ITS RISKS
Lawler is running for re-election in a key swing district in New York City’s northern suburbs that Democrats are targeting as they aim to win back the House majority. Lawler’s campaign is one of hundreds of campaigns across the country that have reported spending on AI technology vendors in their Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosure reports.
While spending by campaigns on AI is expected to increase, Riccardi noted that Lawler’s 2026 re-election team will “spend more money on pizza for volunteers” than it will on AI tools.
But are AI-generated ads helping candidates win at the ballot box?
Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Shortsleeve of Massachusetts grabbed attention in Februar
