Pune: Artificial intelligence (AI) has made its mark on the municipal election campaign. Due to the limited time available for campaigning, candidates are using AI to intensify their social media presence. Experts have observed that various tools, such as audio-visual campaign material creation, sentiment analysis, and AI chatbots, are being extensively used with the help of AI.
In recent years, the use of social media in the political sphere has increased significantly. This has led to the emergence of concepts like 'war rooms'. Now, political parties and candidates are skillfully using this evolving technology for campaigning. Therefore, along with social media, AI is also being utilised.
Since candidates have less time for campaigning, from securing nominations to the actual voting day, they are using AI to reach as many voters as possible within the available time.
AI expert Dr Amey Pangarkar told Loksatta, "In the current era of reels, candidates are primarily focusing on creating reels. Videos are being created to target opposing candidates. AI chatbots, campaign songs, social media advertisements, content creation for analysis, and sentiment analysis are being used to interact with voters directly. AI is proving useful in creating a large amount of campaign material in a short time. This makes it possible to create, maybe around 20 social media posts and numerous reels daily. Moreover, the use of AI has also resulted in cost savings."
"It doesn't seem that AI is being used as effectively as it could be. We haven't seen AI being used for designing hoardings. Using AI for storytelling could be much more effective," he added.
"The use of AI to create videos demonstrating what we are going to do shows an increase in creativity. These videos attempt to showcase what is possible," observed advertising expert Rigved Deshpande. He added that the emergence of many experts in the use of AI has created a new branch in this field. Consequently, the nature of work has changed to some extent, or the work has taken a slightly different direction.
AI’s role in campaigns
In most cases, it is observed that AI is used for creating audio-visual videos, content, and reels, which enables the creation of more promotional material time efficient manner and also results in some cost savings. Moreover, AI is also put to use for sentiment analysis and chatbots for communication with the masses.
