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U.S. political campaigns use AI for research, audience analysis, fundraising and message drafting, volunteer content, and voter outreach—not just for creating synthetic audio or video. A September 2026 analysis by The Guardian identified at least $17 million in disclosed payments to AI technology vendors across 523 federal candidates and campaigns since 2020. That is a researcher-classified total of visible vendor payments, not a complete count of AI use or a full national AI budget.
What campaigns use AI to do
AI use in campaigns ranges from routine staff assistance to tools built specifically for political communications. A vendor name or subscription payment in a filing does not, by itself, establish which campaign staff used the product or what they did with it.
Research and campaign operations
Reported uses include searching and summarizing information, opposition research, analyzing how voters perceive a candidate, and drafting social posts. Staff can also use general-purpose AI assistants to adapt copy for different audiences. Those subscriptions may be recorded as ordinary software or office expenses rather than as a clearly labeled AI purchase.
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The Associated Press reported in 2024 that the Biden campaign used AI to model and build audiences, draft and analyze fundraising email copy, and generate material volunteers could share in the field. The campaign was also testing ways to categorize and analyze information from door-knocking, calls, and text messages.
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AP also described an AI-assisted email experiment run by Tech for Campaigns across 14 Virginia campaigns. The organization’s co-founder and chair, Jessica Alter, said AI-written emails generated between three and four times more fundraising dollars per work hour than staff-written emails in that experiment. That is a claim about one organization’s specific trial, not evidence that AI emails generally outperform staff-written ones.
Voter outreach and persuasion
Campaign-focused services can support automated texting, fundraising email workflows, prospect research, and voter engagement. The Guardian identified Daisychain, Campaign Nucleus, Prompt.io, AmplifAI, and DonorAtlas in its review of filings. TIME also reported on vendors including BattleGroundAI, which said it could draft large volumes of political ad copy quickly, and Grow Progress, whose chatbot helps users create and adjust persuasion messaging. These descriptions include vendor claims; they do not establish independently measured effectiveness.
Synthetic audio and video
Disclosed payments specifically associated with synthetic-media tools are a small visible part of the spending picture. The Guardian found reported ElevenLabs spending by six federal candidates or committees, totaling about $1,400 in its analysis. That finding does not measure synthetic media made with other vendors, free tools, contractors, or services whose filings do not identify AI.
What the disclosed spending figures mean
The leading federal estimate is The Guardian’s analysis of itemized Federal Election Commission expenditure records dating back to 2020. It identified at least $17 million in disclosed payments to AI technology vendors across 523 federal candidates and campaigns. The FEC does not publish an official AI-spending category: the figure reflects the authors’ classification of payments, not an FEC total.
That distinction matters. A filing can show that a committee paid a vendor, but it usually cannot show exactly which staff used the service, what tasks it performed, or whether it changed a campaign’s results. Conversely, AI use may not appear under a recognizable AI vendor name if a campaign used a general-purpose subscription, a contractor, or a bundled service.
Reported vendor payments
| Vendor or category | Reported amount and scope | How to read the figure |
|---|---|---|
| AI technology vendors overall | At least $17 million across 523 federal candidates and campaigns, in The Guardian’s analysis of itemized records dating back to 2020 | Authors’ classification of disclosed vendor payments; not an official FEC AI category or a complete AI budget. |
| OpenAI | About $50,000 in reported payments by at least 80 federal campaigns and committees since 2024, according to The Guardian | The Republican National Committee was the largest overall buyer in the analysis, at nearly $10,000. |
| Anthropic | At least 65 candidate or committee payers in 2026, according to The Guardian | The analysis attributed more than $4,000 in a June filing to Senator Tom Cotton’s campaign. |
| AmplifAI | $4.7 million in campaign spending in the 2022 cycle, according to The Guardian | A campaign-specific vendor figure reported by the authors, not an official AI category. |
| Daisychain | Roughly $300,000 in reported candidate spending in the 2026 cycle, according to The Guardian | A vendor-specific figure from the authors’ filing analysis. |
| Campaign Nucleus | Six-figure spending from the RNC and Trump-aligned PACs, plus five-figure campaign investments, according to The Guardian | The reported amounts include different types of committees; they should not be treated as candidate-campaign spending alone. |
| Prompt.io | About $375,000 in reported 2026 spending, according to The Guardian | A vendor-specific figure from the authors’ filing analysis. |
These payments are not comparable measures of vendor quality or campaign impact. General-purpose assistant subscriptions may be relatively small next to purpose-built messaging and engagement contracts, and the amount paid does not reveal how extensively a service was used.
Federal and state spending are different snapshots
The federal estimate should not be mistaken for a nationwide total covering state and local races. For state filings, The Guardian reported at least $92,000 in payments confidently attributable to modern generative-AI vendors across California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Washington. Its review covered records since 2022 and found spending spread across at least 108 state candidates and committees. This is a four-state sample, not a total for all states.
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Within those four states, the authors reported that state spending in 2026 to date was about ten times the reported total for all of 2024. That comparison applies only to the states studied and to the records the analysis identified.
Disclosure rules also do not make every AI purchase visible as AI. The FEC says political committees generally must itemize payments for independent expenditures once calendar-year payments to a vendor or other person exceed $200 with respect to a particular election. Itemization can reveal a vendor payment, but it does not guarantee that a filing describes the service as AI or separates AI from a broader contract.
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Campaign payments are not the same as all campaign spending
FEC cycle totals provide scale, not an AI-spending comparison. The commission’s official summary for January 1, 2023, through December 31, 2024, reported approximately $1.8 billion in presidential candidate disbursements, $3.7 billion in congressional candidate disbursements, and $2.6 billion in party committee spending. Those totals cover all activity in their respective categories; they do not identify AI expenses.
Committee type matters as well. A candidate’s campaign, a national party committee, a PAC, and an independent expenditure committee are distinct payers. The Guardian’s vendor examples include party and PAC payments as well as candidate spending, so a combined vendor figure should not be described as money spent by candidates alone.
What the available evidence can and cannot show
- It can show disclosed payments classified as AI-related. The federal and four-state totals provide a documented floor for specific records and scopes.
- It cannot count all AI use. Unreported, bundled, or generically described services—and tools used without a separate payment—may not be identifiable in filings.
- It cannot establish a tool’s exact role or effect. A vendor payment does not prove which workflow used the product or whether it affected voter behavior, fundraising, or an election result.
- It cannot support a vendor effectiveness ranking. Differences in disclosed spending do not show which product performs better.
The Guardian’s authors wrote that candidates themselves are quiet about how they use the technology. That is their characterization of public disclosure, not a count of how many campaigns do or do not use AI.
Safeguards and the dated federal policy picture
AP reported that the Biden campaign described a 2024 policy requiring staff review of AI-generated content used in advertising, social media, and similar copy. The campaign also said it prohibited using AI to mislead voters, spread disinformation, or create deepfakes. This describes that campaign’s stated policy at the time; it is not a standard shared by every campaign.
In an update dated March 18, 2024, the Congressional Research Service stated: “No federal statute or regulation specifically addresses artificial intelligence (AI) in political campaigns.” CRS also explained that existing campaign-finance law and FEC regulations apply to conduct involving calls for the election or defeat of federal candidates or fundraising. It noted that professional guidance from the American Association of Political Consultants is voluntary, not a regulatory requirement. This is a dated account of the federal policy landscape, not current legal advice or a claim that other general laws do not apply.
How to interpret the headline number
The most defensible reading is that U.S. campaigns are using AI across operational, fundraising, communications, and outreach work, while disclosed payments identify only part of the activity. The at-least-$17-million figure is useful evidence of visible federal vendor spending, but it is neither a complete national AI budget nor a measure of how much AI shaped campaign decisions or outcomes.
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