AI Election Ads: Who's Really Pulling Your Strings?

Rhema's Head of Digital Media, Justin Smith, joins Andrew Urquhart to unpack how AI and digital advertising are reshaping this election cycle. Smith notes that while obviously fake AI content (like AI-generated attack ads) is easy enough to spot, the real danger lies in volume and repetition - algorithms bombarding undecided voters with the same message from countless sources until it feels credible.

Smith warns that the bigger threat isn't today's crude AI ads but future hyper-personalised targeting, where parties with enough money could exploit personal data to nudge individual voters toward a chosen outcome. He also flags growing concern around people asking AI chatbots like Grok who to vote for, arguing this outsources democratic judgement to platforms that may carry the ideological bias of their creators, rather than helping voters simply clarify their own values.

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