Dramatic political attack ads hitting the airwaves this year have shown a Senate candidate driving a bus of undocumented immigrants to a polling place, a governor hopeful grabbing bags stuffed full of cash, and a Republican congressman holding hands with two of his Democratic colleagues in what a narrator described as a “throuple.”
None of those compromising situations ever happened — the ads were all generated with artificial intelligence.
From January through mid-September, political campaigns and groups had spent more than $16 million on TV ads that disclosed using AI-generated or manipulated images, according to a CNN analysis of ad data.
But only about half of states require campaigns to disclose AI use in political ads — and at least $38 million has been spent on ads that strongly appear to include AI imagery despite featuring no disclosure.
That includes ads in key midterm races that could sway the balance of power in Congress, such as ads from GOP campaigns and groups showing Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff getting a makeover and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico defacing a Bible. The Ossoff ad didn’t have any disclosure about AI use, while the Talarico ad featured a small disclosure saying that “certain video content” was created with AI.
The flood of ads containing lifelike imagery has sparked alarms among lawmakers and voters alike, fearful of being misrepresented and misinformed. Already, the new frontier of AI ads has roiled political campaigns, with some ads being taken off air after complaints by candidates, and a Texas candidate filing a police report alleging that a video depicting her endorsing a list of new taxes violated state law.
AI’s use in campaign commercials comes amid public unease with the underlying technology and growing debate among policymakers over how, and whether, to take additional steps to rein it in. A new CNN poll found that about eight in 10 Americans express negative views about the rapid pace of AI development.
CNN’s analysis found that Republicans have been quicker to adopt AI in political ads than their Democratic opponents. About 96% of the spending on ads that disclosed AI use came from GOP campaigns or groups.
CNN found a handful of ads that appear to skirt state laws about disclosures. In Michigan, a PAC linked to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican, aired an ad showing Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed laughing at messages saying “Death to America” and “Celebrate 9/11,” and dancing with the left-wing influencer Hasan Piker and other figures.
The final seconds of the ad included a disclosure in tiny text and a spoken line acknowledging it was “created in whole or in part with the use of artificial intelligence” — but one Michigan law requires “materially deceptive” ads that aim to influence elections to feature a disclosure “throughout the entirety of the video” that is “clearly visible to and readable by an observer.”
In a statement to CNN, El-Sayed campaign spokesman Cole Wozniak said Republicans “are so desperate that they are resorting to cheap AI generated ads filled with falsehoods and bad faith attacks.”
The use of AI in political ads ranges from relatively minor changes like animating old family photos to surreal attacks, like one ad that put a Florida governor candidate’s talking head on the body of a fish or another that showed President Donald Trump frying a patty with a congressman’s face on it.
While some of the most outlandish ads are obviously AI-generated, experts are worried about less clear cases.
The danger is that “people are seeing things that didn’t happen, seeing politicians say things they actually didn’t say,” said Travis Ridout, a political scientist at Washington State University and one of the co-directors of the Wesleyan Media Project, which has studied AI use in political ads.
“Even if there’s a disclaimer on there that says this was synthetically generated, oftentimes seeing is believing,” he said.
To track the growth in spending in AI political ads, CNN analyzed thousands of ads that aired this year and were collected by the tracking service AdImpact. Reporters used AI to extract all text shown on screen in each ad and then manually reviewed those with relevant disclosures. The analysis revealed dozens of ads that disclosed to viewers that they included AI-generated, enhanced or manipulated content.
Reporters also reviewed and identified several dozen additional ads that did not disclose using AI but strongly appear to feature AI-generated imagery. Some of those ads were flagged by researchers at the Wesleyan Media Project. Reporters excluded some ads when it was unclear whether they used AI or more traditional graphic effects technology.
The analysis found that spending on broadcast TV political ads that clearly featured AI grew from less than $25,000 in January to more than $10 million in the first half of September alone.
It’s likely that CNN’s analysis missed some ads that used AI without disclosing it, because the use of the technology is not always obvious.
A leading Republican super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, produced an attack ad last month targeting Ossoff that uses AI imagery to mock his campaign spending on hair and makeup.
“Thousands on hair and makeup. What a phony,” claims an individual in the ad, which depicts Ossoff receiving cosmetic treatments including a blow dry, eye cucumbers and nail filing.
The Georgia Democrat called for the ad to be taken down at a press conference shortly after it was launched, saying it was “deeply troubling to see these deepfake videos used to fabricate political advertising.” An SLF spokesman said it was Ossoff’s record that was “deeply troubling.”
Another ad launched last month by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton shows Talarico, his Democratic opponent for US Senate, drawing in a Bible and making statements about religion and gender.
The ad features quotes that Talarico said over the years without context — yet they’re spoken not by the actual Talarico, but an AI-generated version of him.
“Ken Paxton and his billionaire backers in DC know they can’t rely on facts to win this race — so their only answer is to literally put words in James’ mouth with AI deepfake videos to try and fool Texans,” Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement.
Paxton’s campaign rejected the criticism.
“Our team was diligent in ensuring every piece of the ad was properly sourced and cited,” Paxton spokesperson Madison Cercy said in a statement. “We intend to continue to use all available means to put James Talarico’s radical record in front of Texans.”
AI advertising was also a flashpoint in the contentious race to oust GOP Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District earlier this year.
One of the outside groups opposing Massie ran ads that featured AI-generated imagery of the congressman walking hand-in-hand with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, progressive Democrats vilified by conservatives, but who aligned with Massie on opposition to US military aid for Israel.
The ad showed what appeared to be paparazzi photos of the trio dining together, and security footage of them checking into a hotel, as a narrator declared that Massie was “cheating with the squad on the America First movement.” A small text disclosure shown during the ad’s first seconds stated that “this satirical ad was created with artificial intelligence.”
After he lost his primary earlier this year, Massie suggested the ad could have contributed to his defeat. “Many older people voted against me because they believed I dated AOC and Omar,” the congressman wrote about the ad in a post on X. “I told AOC I would never do that with Omar!” he joked.
Beyond the more contentious examples, many candidates have also turned to AI tools to simply and cheaply produce less controversial campaign content. Rick Jackson, the GOP nominee for Georgia governor, has spent millions this year on ads that include AI animations of family photos and dramatizations of his hardscrabble childhood, making his campaign the top spender on AI ads identified by CNN. (While some of his ads have disclosed using AI, others have not — disclosures are not required in Georgia.)
Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford law professor who studies the use of AI in elections, said that deepfake AI ads could end up having the most impact not in prominent statewide races but down-ballot, low-information contests where voters might not take the time to study candidates or fact-check ads they see.
“We’ve had Photoshop and attempts to manipulate imagery and lies that politicians have told since the beginning of time,” Persily said. “There’s something about realistic video that makes it more believable to people and has a greater emotional appeal.”
At least 31 states have passed laws regulating the use of AI content and deepfakes in political advertising, ranging from outright prohibitions to disclosure requirements, according to a tally by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Most of those laws were signed in the last three years, as AI use became more prevalent.
Most of the states require some sort of disclosure of AI content or deepfakes in political ads, while three states — Maryland, Minnesota and Texas — have banned some deepfake ads. Minnesota’s and Texas’ prohibitions only apply in specific periods leading up to elections.
“This year is a test case to see if those laws are being effective, are they being enforced, whether AI really becomes a major factor in elections,” said Katy Owens Hubler, the director of the NCSL’s elections program.
At least a few of the AI-powered ads that have aired in midterm races in recent months appear to violate those laws.
In Tennessee, several campaigns have been hit with AI attack ads, even after the state passed a law requiring disclosure in deepfake political ads in July.
Just weeks after that law passed, a dark money group opposing GOP governor candidate Marsha Blackburn aired an ad using AI without disclosure showing her cavorting with pharma lobbyists, tarring her as “Queen Mama Pharma” and tying her to opioid deaths in the state. Blackburn’s campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to the group calling the ad false and defamatory and successfully got several TV stations to take the ad off the air.
In the state’s 6th Congressional District, two competing Republican candidates also attacked each other with dueling AI-powered ads. Johnny Garrett aired an ad showing someone with the nametag of his rival, Van Hilleary, receiving a stack of money from Michael Bloomberg, while Hilleary’s campaign hit back with an ad showing Garrett sleeping in office and attending a pride parade.
Both campaigns told local media that they believed the new deepfake law didn’t apply to candidates for federal office.
In Michigan, meanwhile, El-Sayed’s campaign has sharply criticized the AI-made ad, which seeks to closely link the candidate to the Muslim Brotherhood and Piker, a left-wing Twitch streamer.
A spokesperson for The Front Line Action, the super PAC behind the ad, defended the spot. “The substance of the ad is grounded in El-Sayed’s own public statements and documented reporting and records concerning him and individuals associated with or supportive of his campaign,” the PAC spokesperson said in a statement.
Also disputed: Which statute applies to the ad.
One Michigan law requires a three-second voiceover acknowledging AI’s use in political commercials and a four-second written disclosure. A second election law, governing “materially deceptive media,” however, also requires disclosure throughout a video if it “falsely represents a depicted individual,” intends to harm a candidate’s electoral chances and is distributed within 90 days of an election. Additionally, the person distributing the ad has to know that it falsely represents the person depicted. A PAC spokesperson said the group views the first law as governing its ad and said the commercial is in compliance.
Efforts to prohibit the distribution of deceptive AI-generated ads or mandate disclosures of AI use in advertising have failed to gain traction in Congress or with the Federal Election Commission, which currently lacks a quorum to operate anyway.
And legal experts say there are high hurdles to regulating political speech, particularly when ads reflect words that the targeted candidates actually uttered.
Generally, AI-generated ads that can be interpreted as satire or parody are exempt from the state disclosure requirements, said Ilana Beller, director of state AI governance and technology at Public Citizen, the left-leaning consumer advocacy group. The organization has advocated for regulation at the federal and state level.
Federal judges in Hawaii and California found parts of election deepfake laws in those states unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.
But even without federal action, the growing number of state regulations seems to have helped limit what Beller called the “nightmare scenario” of truly deceptive, realistic-looking commercials in which “the public sees a thing and believes that the candidate actively participated in something morally wrong or scandalous in some way that would sway public opinion.”
Controversies aside, AI has had the broad effect of lowering the barrier to entry to political ad-making.
Political advertisers and observers said that ad-makers have been turning to AI to streamline their process, saving money and time by testing AI versions of ads that, if approved, go into real production.
Lauren French, the communications director of Senate Majority PAC, a leading Democratic group, said that while some political campaigns have always used ads to promote lies, they’re now “doing it with tools that were previously not available.” She criticized the ads attacking Talarico and Ossoff as misleading voters.
“We still need to embrace it and use it,” she said of the new technology. “But we can use it and be ethical, tell the truth.”
Meanwhile, other campaigns airing ads featuring genuine videos of their opponents have taken the time to explicitly declare that they aren’t generated by AI — in an attempt to help viewers cut through the slop.
“I’m going to show you something, no AI, no special effects, just Michael Whatley in his own words,” Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper declared at the beginning of one attack ad aired earlier this year.
Persily, the Stanford professor, said voters could eventually get so used to AI attacks that they would grow to doubt even real videos.
“It is going to be increasingly difficult for voters to know whether something is true or not,” he said. “That’s the greater harm to democracy.”
