[Research Press Release] Artificial intelligence: Chatbots may influence voting intentions (Nature)
5 December 2025
Conversations with artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have the potential to influence the attitudes and intentions of voters, according to a study publishing in Nature. These results are demonstrated in controlled experiments during the 2024 US presidential election and 2025 national elections in Poland and Canada. The results suggest that AI-based approaches to persuasion may have an important role in future elections.
The rise of chatbots using generative AI has prompted discussion on the effect of such technology on democratic societies. However, it has yet to be established how AI chatbots could influence voter behaviour.
David Rand and colleagues carried out multiple experiments involving conversations with an AI model that was programmed to advocate for one of the candidates, covering the 2024 US presidential election or the 2025 national elections in Canada and Poland. The model was instructed to be positive, respectful and fact-based, and to acknowledge the individuals’ views while using compelling arguments to support its points. For the US study, the authors recruited 2,306 US citizens ahead of the election; each participant indicated their likelihood of voting for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. They were then randomly matched with a chatbot designed to advocate for one of the candidates. The views of individuals towards their preferred candidate were strengthened slightly when speaking with a chatbot with aligned views. A stronger effect was seen for chatbots persuading people who were initially opposed to the candidate that the AI model was advocating for. Similar effects were observed in the other national election experiments, involving AI advocating for either the Liberal Party leader Mark Carney or the Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre in Canada, and centrist-liberal Civic Coalition’s candidate Rafał Trzaskowski or the right-wing Law and Justice party’s candidate Karol Nawrocki in Poland.
Facts and evidence, such as discussions about policy, were more compelling than discussion of personality traits. However, the factual evidence was not always accurate, with AI models advocating for candidates on the political right making more inaccurate claims in all three countries. “These findings carry the uncomfortable implication that political persuasion by AI can exploit imbalances in what the models ‘know’, spreading uneven inaccuracies even under explicit instructions to remain truthful,” note Chiara Vargiu and Alessandro Nai in an accompanying News & Views article.
These results come from controlled experiments, in which participants were aware that the AI would try to persuade them. Thus, it is not clear whether the effects would be replicated in real political environments. However, the findings suggest that AI models have the potential to sway people’s political views, which may affect future democratic elections.
- Article
- Published: 04 December 2025
Lin, H., Czarnek, G., Lewis, B. et al. Persuading voters using human–artificial intelligence dialogues. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09771-9
News & Views: AI chatbots can persuade voters to change their minds
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03733-x
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