Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit > Toolkits > Volume 02

Volume 02 - Digital Comms - Play 05

5. AI for Content Production

Streamline Content Creation and Amplify Your Message

The Play

AI has become a powerful ally in today's fast-moving digital landscape. Think of it as your rapid-response content unit—able to generate videos, posts, graphics, scripts, and even voiceovers in record time. This makes it easier to produce high-quality, tailored materials that truly resonate with your audience.

By automating content creation, AI helps maintain a steady, engaging flow of communication—key to keeping political momentum alive. It's not just fast, but cost-effective, allowing teams to stretch their resources further.

For smaller organizations, this means being able to compete with larger, better-funded players. AI levels the playing field by speeding up production, personalizing messaging, and adapting content to each platform—ensuring your message reaches the right people, in the right format, at the right time

Why it works

• Small teams get big-team power. AI dramatically increases the speed, volume, and variety of content production—helping under-resourced campaigns punch above their weight.
• Resources go further. Automated tools reduce the time and cost of creating high-quality materials, freeing up capacity for fieldwork and direct voter engagement.
• Messages hit the mark. AI enables tailored communication—adapting content to specific audiences, platforms, and moments for greater relevance and impact.
• Response time shrinks. With rapid content generation, campaigns can react in real time to unfolding events, keeping their message timely, sharp, and agile.

How it works

1. Understand AI capabilities and your audience

Start by familiarizing yourself with the various AI tools available for content production and their specific applications. Recognize the intended audience for your content. Are they general voters? Or are they a specific demographic or community? In any case, AI tools can help you tailor the content to meet their needs.

2. Optimize prompting techniques

Utilize the principles of prompt engineering to maximize the effectiveness of AI in content production. As a general guideline, effective prompt engineering often involves breaking down complex content creation tasks into smaller, manageable prompts, which can significantly enhance the quality of the output. Clear directives, example-driven prompting, and audience-specific language are key to guiding AI in generating relevant and impactful content.

Additionally, consider the following principles:

• Humanness and authenticity affirmative directives. Use positive language in prompts to direct AI effectively.
• Few-shot prompting. Guide output with clear examples.
• Chain-of-thought. For complex content, ask the AI to think step by step or provide a "chain of reasoning." This can help when generating more structured and logical content.
• Role assignment. Ask the AI to act as a "strategist" or "designer" for better tone and structure.
• Scenario-based prompts. Frame prompts around real-world cases to improve relevance. For example, "Explain this concept as if to a high school student."
• Include a testing phase. Where the AI must generate content and then evaluate or correct it based on provided criteria. This helps in refining the quality of the final output.

3. Checking is fundamental

AI is a powerful tool for content creation, but it is crucial that all final checks, reviews, and adjustments are conducted by humans. AI can make mistakes and provide incorrect information, especially in areas requiring precision and accuracy, so human oversight is essential to maintain the integrity of the content. So, always double-check so you can rest assured. Check every aspect of the AI-generated content and also pay special attention to the following:

• Mathematical operations: verify calculations and numerical data, as AI may occasionally yield incorrect results.
• Most recent factual information: Ensure that the information provided is updated, as AI may rely on outdated sources or lack access to the latest developments.
• Reproductions of excerpts: Be cautious with excerpts from books, films, series, and music; make sure they are accurate and contextually appropriate.
• Attribution of authorship: Confirm that AI correctly attributes authorship for books, studies, and cultural works to avoid misrepresentation.
• Quotes: Verify the accuracy and context of any quotes used, as AI might generate or misattribute them.
• Biographical facts: Double-check biographical details to ensure that they are correct and appropriately sourced.

4. Use AI for multimodal content creation

Leverage AI not only to produce the content you need but also to add new elements that complement your message. AI tools can help create infographics, videos, podcasts, and other multimedia content, allowing your campaign to make use of different formats and strategies to enrich the content and make it more accessible for specific audiences and adaptable to certain channels.

5. Monitor and adapt

Track how AI-generated content performs—through engagement, feedback, and reach. Adjust prompts and tactics based on what's working. This ongoing adaptation will ensure that your content remains effective and resonates with your audience.

Tips

A. Collaborate with AI for Creative Brainstorming

Leverage AI as a creative partner during the content creation phase. By inputting general ideas or themes, AI can suggest different angles, formats, or even unexpected approaches that might not have been considered yet. This collaborative process can spark new ideas and help overcome creative blocks, leading to more innovative and engaging content that stands out in today's crowded digital landscape.

B. Human-AI Collaboration

AI-generated content is a collaborative effort. Human oversight is crucial in refining and contextualizing AI outputs to ensure they align with the campaign's values and messaging. This collaboration not only enhances the effectiveness and authenticity of the content produced but also mitigates the biases and stereotypes inherent in artificial intelligence. This is essential for maintaining credibility and inclusivity in political communication.

Who's done it well?

Argentina: Massa's 2023 Campaign

Speed, Scale, and Spin

The 2023 Argentine presidential election marked a turning point in how artificial intelligence (AI) was used to shape political campaigns. Both leading candidates—Sergio Massa and Javier Milei—incorporated AI into their strategies, but in fundamentally different ways.

AI-generated content supporting Milei spread rapidly, often outside formal campaign structures. His digital base shared memes, videos, and messages that went viral organically—many produced with AI tools but without direct involvement from the official campaign. This decentralized, bottom-up model gave his movement speed and scale, but also unpredictability.

In contrast, Massa's campaign used AI systematically. His team integrated tools like script generation, voice cloning, and meme creation into a tightly coordinated rapid-response operation. The goal was clear: maintain message control, accelerate content production, and expand outreach across platforms.

One standout moment came with a highly realistic AI-generated video backing Massa. It blended synthetic visuals with deepfake-style voiceovers mimicking real speeches. The video's emotional punch helped it go viral, demonstrating the power of intentional, high-impact AI storytelling.

AI allowed Massa's team to produce tailored, high-quality content at a fraction of the usual time and cost. But the election also underscored a critical lesson: AI doesn't just amplify campaign messages—it reshapes how influence spreads. Content can go viral with or without official approval, making message discipline more difficult to maintain.

As AI continues to evolve, future campaigns will need to strike a balance between speed, authenticity, and control in a fast-moving, decentralized digital landscape.

"The ability of AI to rapidly create content that is efficient, emotionally engaging, and highly personalized for different voter segments is a game-changer in modern political campaigns."

India: Indian National Congress' 2024 Campaign

Smarter, Faster, Cheaper

In India's 2024 national elections, opposition parties faced a steep disadvantage. Compared to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), they were underfunded, understaffed, and operating on an uneven playing field. For parties like the Indian National Congress (INC), AI became a critical tool to close that gap.

AI powered two pillars of the INC's digital strategy: content creation and voter engagement.

On the content front, tools like ChatGPT helped the party's digital teams generate high volumes of messaging—tweets, post comments, and campaign letters—at speed. AI-generated images were used to create engaging, low-cost graphics for social media. AI also supported rapid research, helping teams produce primers on key historical issues and draft counter-narratives to BJP messaging (later vetted for accuracy).

To boost voter engagement, individual INC candidates experimented with AI-powered song generators, producing catchy campaign anthems in seconds—at a fraction of the cost of professional production.

But what made this AI-powered strategy effective wasn't just the tech—it was the distribution. The INC backed up its content production with a robust digital ecosystem: official channels, an expanding network of influencers, open WhatsApp groups, and grassroots fandoms. This infrastructure helped the campaign scale its message far beyond what its limited resources would normally allow.

"AI didn't just help us create more content—it helped us connect faster, speak smarter, and bridge the gap, giving us the speed and scale we needed to compete with fewer resources"

Learn more

D-Hub Resources

• D-Hub. 2024. "The Triumph of the Outsider." The Fight for Democracy Chronicles, Volume 2.

Other Resources

• Brewster, Jack. 2024. "How I Built an AI-Powered, Self-Running Propaganda Machine for $105."
• Hard Folk. 2024. "What Happened to the A.I. Election? + ChatGPT for Mayor + The Productivity Tools We're Using". New York Times Podcast
• IA por la Patria (AI for the Homeland). @iaxlapatria. Instagram account
• New York Times. 2023. "Is Argentina the First A.I. Election?"

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