The use of already causes an earthquake in this year’s electoral campaigns.
With AI tools, teams send increasingly segmented messages, marketers replace qualitative research with “synthetic voters” to test effectiveness, videos and internet publications that took a day and a half to prepare are finished in a few hours.
At the same time, campaigns are walking on eggshells because of what . It is clear to them that ) are prohibited. But there are doubts about the legality of certain resources.
A Sheet spoke with members of the teams of (), () and (), pre-candidates for the Presidency, of (Republicans) and (PT), pre-candidates for the Government of, and federal and state deputies. Some asked not to be identified, saying it was strategic information.
One of the majority campaigns has a team of 54 people dedicated to promoting nanosegmentation. The campaign is able to customize the candidate’s message to, for example, reach women in the west zone of São Paulo without health insurance and who are likely to start supporting the politician.
Software that uses AI monitors so-called “sentimentalization” — how social media accounts react to each content. Millions of social media profiles are “tagged” to map the topics that resonate most and how the candidate’s and competitors’ content resonates.
All campaigns emphasize, however, that it is important to have humans in direct relationships with voters, because people do not like interacting with robots.
A campaign wanted to assess the repercussions of the (Supreme Federal Court). In five seconds, he was able to map potential detractors and supporters on social networks, the key theses and have suggestions for responses.
All the main pre-candidacies have AIs trained with speeches, reports, interviews and materials from the candidate and rivals.
“The AI ’learns’ the tone of the candidate’s speech, his expressions, how he positions himself in relation to topics”, says Nara Alves, managing partner of Ela Marketing Político, which works for candidates from various parties.
This is used for briefings (the description of what is expected from each piece of political propaganda) and for scripts, determining what would be appropriate to talk about in a given city. They can also have versions of the candidate that are most ironic, serious or aggressive – and then test what works best using “social listening” software, which measures reactions on social media.
“AI has been revolutionizing every campaign process, from creating content to segmenting messages and mobilizing supporters”, says Bruno Bernardes, partner at PLTK, an agency owned by marketer Pablo Nobel, responsible for Tarcísio’s campaign.
Deepfakes, which have been banned by TSE resolution since 2024, are criticized by all marketers.
According to Bernardes, the last Argentine presidential election showed the danger. Fake videos using deepfake with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher contesting Javier Milei and Peronist candidate Sergio Massa snorting cocaine went viral two weeks before the second round in 2023.
The accounts producing and disseminating this content are not directly linked to the candidates.
For electoral lawyer Hélio Silveira, this must be one of the main problems of the election.
Silveira, who worked on Congresswoman Tábata Amaral’s (PSB) campaign for São Paulo City Hall in 2024 and Fernando Haddad’s (PT) campaign for government in 2022, expects a massive use of fake accounts to distribute messages attacking candidates, many of them using AI.
Although deepfakes are the most visible facet of the electoral use of AI, it is behind the scenes that it is making radical transformations. In addition to segmentation, content creation has gained a lot of agility.
A video by Ronaldo Caiado opens with an AI image of a Brazilian flag being shot at and beginning to bleed as if it were human flesh.
“Brazil watches indignantly, scared and powerless as the deaths of thousands of its children, victims of crime”, says the pre-candidate in the video.
According to Caiado’s marketer, Paulo Vasconcelos, without AI, it would take four days to make the piece. With AI, it took a few hours.
The video announcers were 100% replaced by AI, as was the generation of supporting images.
Manipulated content
During the campaign, according to the TSE resolution, it will be necessary to inform that the content has been manipulated. Furthermore, they use the image or voice of a candidate or public figure, even if labeled.
Some campaigns are using chatbots to save costs on qualitative research, in which groups of readers give their opinions in more depth on topics.
SVA Solutions–Galaxies’ “synthetic voter” creates, using data from real groups of voters, profiles that bring together characteristics of certain segments. For example, “PSDB widows”, center-right people who used to vote for the Tucanos and reject Bolsonaro or leftists frustrated with the PT.
These profiles are used to test messages or even manage crises. “When we have little funding to do extensive research and understand how to deal with a candidate’s specific issue, it is an option”, says Andrés Benedykt, marketer for candidate for federal deputy José Dirceu (PT).
A well-done qualitative survey with a thousand interviewees can cost R$150,000. The synthetic voter costs R$65,000 per month and can be activated at any time.
Some tools still raise questions among legal departments. Customizing messages using AI, with adapting candidates’ video or audio to call voters by name or mention their cities of origin, is still a gray area.
Some lawyers believe that as long as there is notice of AI use, it is authorized by the candidate and it is not negative advertising, there is no problem.
Others think it is a deepfake. It would only be possible to use AI to improve audio and video quality. The TSE resolution prohibits the use “to harm or favor candidacy” of synthetic content in audio or video format to create, replace or alter a person’s image or voice.
Either way, many marketers warn that certain uses of AI can backfire. “I think it’s risky to customize audio, any strangeness could end up generating rejection among voters”, says marketer Felipe Pimentel.
