FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Donald Trump’s former campaign manager looked squarely into the camera and promised his viewers they were about to witness a bold new era in politics.
“You’re going to see some of the most amazing new technology in artificial intelligence that’s going to replace polling in the future across the country,” said Brad Parscale in a dimly lit promotional video accentuated by hypnotic beats.
Parscale, the digital campaign operative who helped engineer Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, vows that his new, AI-powered platform will dramatically overhaul not just polling, but campaigning. His AI-powered tools, he has boasted, will outperform big tech companies and usher in a wave of conservative victories worldwide.
It’s not the first time Parscale has proclaimed that new technologies will boost right-wing campaigns. He was the digital guru who teamed up with scandal-plagued Cambridge Analytica and helped propel Trump to the White House eight years ago. In 2020, he had a public blowup then a private falling out with his old boss after the Capitol riot. Now he’s back, playing an under-the-radar role to help Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, in his race against Democratic President Joe Biden.
Parscale says his company, Campaign Nucleus, can use AI to help generate customized emails, parse oceans of data to gauge voter sentiment and find persuadable voters, then amplify the social media posts of “anti-woke” influencers, according to an Associated Press review of Parscale’s public statements, his company websites, slide decks, marketing materials and other documents not previously made public.
Since last year, Campaign Nucleus and other Parscale-linked companies have been paid more than $2.2 million by the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and their related political action and fundraising committees, campaign finance records show.
While his firms have received only a small piece of Trump’s total digital spending, Parscale remains close to top Republicans, as well as senior officials at the campaign and at the RNC, according to a GOP operative familiar with Parscale’s role who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics.
Lara Trump, the RNC’s new co-chair and Trump’s daughter-in-law, once worked as a consultant to a company co-owned by Parscale. And U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s campaign recently hired Campaign Nucleus, campaign finance records show.
Parscale, however, is not involved in day-to-day Trump campaign operations, the GOP operative said.
Parscale’s ability to use AI to micro target supporters and tap them for campaign cash could prove critical for Trump’s campaign and other fundraising organizations. They have seen a falloff in contributions from smaller donors and a surge in spending — at least $77 million so far — on attorneys defending the former president in a slew of criminal and civil cases.
Beyond Trump, Parscale has said he’s harnessed AI to supercharge conservative candidates and causes across the globe, including in Israel, the Balkans and Brazil.
NEW AI-POWERED CAMPAIGN TOOLS
Parscale is hardly alone in using machine learning to try to give candidates an edge by predicting, pinpointing and motivating likely supporters to vote and donate money. Politicians at all levels are experimenting with chatbots and other generative AI tools to write speeches, ad copy and fundraising appeals.
Some Democrats have voiced concern over being outmaneuvered by Republicans on AI, much like they were on social media advertising eight years ago. So far, the Biden campaign and other Democrats said they are using AI to help them find and motivate voters and to better identify and defeat disinformation.
Election experts say they are concerned about AI’s potential to upend elections around the world through convincing deepfakes and other content that could mislead voters. Free and low-cost generative AI services have grown in sophistication, and officials worry they can be used to smear a candidate or steer voters to avoid the polls, eroding the public’s trust in what they see and hear.
Parscale has the financial backing to experiment to see what works in ways that other AI evangelists may not. That is thanks, in part, to his association with an evangelical Texas billionaire who is among the state’s most influential political donors.
Parscale did not respond to multiple messages from AP seeking comment. The RNC declined comment as well.
AI IS ‘SO SCARY’
Trump has called artificial intelligence “ so scary ” and “dangerous.” His campaign, which has shied away from highlighting Parscale’s role, said in an emailed statement that it did not “engage or utilize” tools supplied by any AI company.
“The campaign uses a set of proprietary algorithmic tools, like many other campaigns across the country, to help deliver emails more efficiently and prevent sign up lists from being populated by false information,” said campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.
While political consultants often hype their tactics to land new contracts, they can also be intensely secretive about the details of that work to avoid assisting rivals. That makes it difficult to precisely track how Parscale is deploying AI for the Trump campaign, or more broadly.
Parscale has said Campaign Nucleus can send voters customized emails and use data analytics to predict voters’ feelings. The platform can also amplify “anti-woke” influencers who have large followings on social media, according to his company’s documents and videos.
Parscale said his company also can use artificial intelligence to create “stunning web pages in seconds” that produce content that looks like a media outlet, according to a presentation he gave last month at a political conference, where he was not advertised in advance as a speaker.
