As discussions about leveraging AI for increased efficiency become more common, political parties in Maharashtra seem less enthusiastic about using generative AI for their election campaigns. Opposition parties, such as the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP SP) and the Indian National Congress, believe that engaging on social media produces better results than AI-generated content. However, the Congress party acknowledged that AI can assist in accelerating other aspects of campaigning.

Recent media reports have highlighted how political parties, such as the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), are using AI-generated ads for the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra. Similarly, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) utilized AI-generated images during their campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, but they faced criticism from the public for this approach.

Shivam Singh, the Director of the Strategic Innovation Group at the Narrative Landscapes (SIGNAL) Institute, uses AI-driven insights to develop campaigns. He stated that rather than facing criticism, AI-driven campaigns often lack any significant impact on elections.“Use of technology is very effective in elections, but it depends on what technology is used with what intent. AI is not very effective in election campaigning. Normal campaigning works just as well as AI campaigning. This is something that was borne out in US elections where everyone raised a lot of fear about AI being misused, but there wasn’t much deepfake content in the end,” said Singh.