How OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic Plan to Handle the 2026 US Midterms

As the performance of generative AI models continues to improve significantly year-on-year, each new election season brings novel AI risks: AI-generated images are now all but impossible to discern from genuine ones; generated copy is less stilted and obvious; increasingly autonomous agents could potentially collapse the costs of running deceptive campaigns; and new model capabilities raise fears of cyber attacks on campaigns and election infrastructure.

That concern prompted Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to issue a letter to tech companies in March of this year recommending a series of measures intended to prevent the creation and dissemination of deceptive election-related content and to blunt its credibility ahead of the 2026 US midterm elections. (Warner sent similar letters requesting information about what measures companies were taking ahead of the 2024 elections.)

At the same time, AI companies are also on the defensive against attacks from the right accusing them of creating models that are biased against conservative viewpoints. This is bound to make any election-related efforts fraught for the companies, considering that even the politically-neutral donation that Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, along with his spouse, Pricilla Chan, gave to support election infrastructure back in 2020 earned him the threat of a jail sentence from President Donald Trump after he left the White House at the end of his first term.

In this context, relative newcomers OpenAI and Anthropic have both released statements detailing their plans to mitigate harms in the lead up to the midterms. These statements are notable for their similarities, as well as a few differences. These are outlined below. Also included are details from Google Public Policy’s elections page, which appears to have been updated in the last few months and includes several references to generative AI, though not focusing on that area of the company’s operations exclusively. No other major platform has yet released a public statement regarding generative AI in this year’s elections, but some of their existing commitments are also noted.

Providing reliable election information

For better or for worse, many people now turn to generative AI chatbots as their first port-of-call for information, despite their propensity to hallucinate or otherwise return untrue outputs, sometimes without sources. When the topic of the query is about, for example, voting procedures, a candidate or party’s policy positions, or election results, an inaccurate answer can be a matter of serious concern for election integrity.

• OpenAI has announced partnerships with Democracy Works for sourcing information on “voting and registration processes” via their API and with the AP for election results in both the US and Brazil. The company also notes that ChatGPT not only relies on its training data but also uses web search “to provide stronger answers with source links so people can go deeper.”
• Anthropic is also drawing on Democracy Works, with banners that are in addition to typical generated outputs, directing users to the nonprofit’s external TurboVote resources for authoritative, up-to-date information. The sample banner warns that information provided by the LLM may be outdated, though Anthropic also notes that election-related queries often trigger a web search which surfaces current material postdating the model’s training data.
• Google, which is still best known for its search product, focuses on AI as a source of information in its elections statement. It references “direct links to official resources,” and notes that “[i]n some instances, AI-powered features can provide richer context from multiple helpful sources.” Regarding the Gemini app, it references a “Double check feature” which appears to be deprecated, but sources are still readily available from Gemini outputs. The company's AI products are also integrated with ranking, safety and anti-spam measures that are part of Google Search architecture.

Transparency for AI-generated media

Perhaps the most well-known AI-related election concern, and the one highlighted by Senator Warner, is the generation and dissemination of deceptive media. This often portrays political candidates as doing or saying things that they did not, but can take other forms, such as providing evidence for purported election fraud or dangerous circumstances near polling locations.

• OpenAI described its integration of SynthID watermarking and C2PA metadata into generated media, as well as willingness to help social media companies make use of these provenance signals. The company has also made available a tool for verifying if images bear these signals. The tool’s FAQ notes, however, that the signals can be stripped from the media, for example by a determined bad actor. Support is also expressed for two pieces of federal legislation regarding deceptive AI outputs, albeit ones that do not appear to place any burden on AI companies whose models produce the media in question.
• Google created the SynthID watermarking technology and applies it to all their generative products, apparently including text, as well as working with other companies to help them implement it. Gemini will identify SynthID-watermarked images, video and audio when files are uploaded to its chatbot interface. The company also participated in the development of the C2PA standard.
• (Anthropic does not provide models that generate images, video, or audio.)

Misuse and policy enforcement

Many AI companies have policies prohibiting a number of activities by users who may be attempting to unfairly influence elections. Of course, stated policy has limited impact in the face of a determined bad actor. Developers therefore bake in guardrails at multiple levels to prevent this misuse, and human review, investigations, and intelligence teams can also be activated to detect and mitigate abuse.

• OpenAI, on top of clearly deceptive and/or illegal election-related activities, “prohibits the use of [its] products to create or distribute scaled campaign messaging for or against a candidate, political party, or ballot measure”—presumably in response to concerns about issues like microtargetting—but suggests that it is open to other uses by campaigns. This contrasts with its formal policy banning “any use for ... political campaigning”. Following its rollout of advertising in some consumer products earlier this year, OpenAI has also decided not to accept political ads this cycle, which it also links to “scaled campaign advocacy.” The company has an Intelligence and Investigations team and releases regular reports that identify information operations that it has detected and disrupted.
• Anthropic has a similar range of prohibitions related to elections as well as to “misinformation” more broadly (it is notable that it is still openly using that term at this moment!). The company’s statement notes the use of classifiers as well as a threat intelligence team, and goes into some detail about the testing that it has conducted regarding their models’ compliance with attempts to use them for legitimate and illegitimate election-related purposes—including autonomous running of campaigns with agentic models—before system prompts and later monitoring efforts are applied.
• Google points to search and advertising policies against deception, and manipulated media in particular, as well as YouTube-specific election misinformation rules, though it does not discuss particular policies and guardrails to prevent the creation of deceptive AI content though products like Gemini, Nano Banana and Veo. AI tools are used for the detection of prohibited content and YouTube’s likeness detection tool is now available for politicians. Google has an active Threat Intelligence operation, but their recent Influence Operations Bulletin does not mention the detection of any campaigns using the company’s generative AI products.

Political bias

Even though, as mentioned above, people do commonly use LLMs to access information, it is less obvious that regular users are discussing politics and working through their voting decisions with chatbots (though there is evidence that they could be influenced if they did). Regardless, political bias can filter through into many kinds of output and have untold impacts on the public.

• OpenAI closed with this topic, asserting that “people ... use ChatGPT to explore ideas, test arguments, and gain more understanding of issues they care about.” It comments that its models are “designed to avoid behavior that would manipulate a user or to conceal relevant facts or viewpoints to nudge them in a particular direction.” A blog post from last year explains how the company defines and measures bias, claiming an improvement in GPT-5 over earlier models, but with “opportunities for closer alignment” to its model spec principle to avoid “steering” users “in pursuit of [the models’ own] agenda.”
• Anthropic chose to open its statement with this category, despite its less concrete potential real-world impact. (Perhaps this was influenced by Anthropic’s well-known cerebral bent, identifying bias as a particularly important philosophical problem—or maybe it was decided with an eye to the perception of the company being at loggerheads with the US administration.) Following an approach laid out in Claude’s Constitution, Anthropic trains its models “to treat different political viewpoints with equal depth, engagement, and analytical rigor,” reinforces with system prompts, and conducts testing for “political evenhandedness.” The company also referenced a related project on free expression, conducted in partnership with The Future of Free Speech, the Foundation for American Innovation, and the Collective Intelligence Project.
• Both companies included declining to engage in discussing certain political topics in their bias metrics, where such refusals were seen as negatives. In the abstract, it is not obvious why this is a symptom of political bias—unless viewed through the lens of “free speech” and “censorship” conceptualised as a contemporary right-wing partisan issue, with the addition of some anecdotal evidence. A quick test of Google’s default search shows that it is currently retaining its old policy of omitting AI content in that context, though Gemini and AI Mode search now respond to elections-related queries. Bias was not discussed in its elections statement.

Cybersecurity

Recent agentic models have been shown to be adept at finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in IT systems, and a successful attack on election infrastructure could throw an election into disarray.

• OpenAI is offering new cyber defense products and advanced access to frontier cyber-optimized models to voting system manufacturers that are registered with the US Election Assistance Commission. It is also providing briefings via the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors on new cyber capabilities and its own tools for defense.
• Anthropic has made its Claude Mythos Preview model available to select partners, including within the US government. However, no specifically election-related efforts have been announced.
• Google mentions several cyber defense programs that it is making available to election-related stakeholders, but these do not have a clear AI focus. The company also discusses a number of cybersecurity and AI efforts in its most recent Responsible AI Progress Report, but without reference to elections.

Other AI Platforms

• Meta’s 2026 elections statement discusses labeling AI-generation in advertising; identifying organic AI-generated content through C2PA; policies against electoral interference that are not AI-specific; efforts to disrupt deceptive influence campaigns; and the Advanced Protection additional security layer for public figures’ Facebook and Instagram accounts. However, there is no information about safeguards for its Meta AI or Llama products and models. Llama’s Acceptable Use policy does prohibit the “creation or promotion of disinformation.”
• Microsoft does not appear to have updated information for this cycle despite making a number of commitments, especially in connection with political deepfakes, prior to the previous cycle. These included C2PA-related efforts, leveraging its Threat Analysis Center, and protecting elections infrastructure. In terms of its own generative AI products, not much was said, though the 2023 post did mention partnerships with other organizations to surface reliable election information sources on Bing, which integrates generative AI outputs.
• Amongst smaller platforms, ElevenLabs, Mistral and Snap all have policies relating specifically to elections as well as some relevant guardrails. Perplexity, which prohibits use for political campaigns, established an elections information hub in November of 2024 using Associated Press and Democracy Works data, but that is not currently active. xAI, meanwhile, has no clear elections policies and, according to the San Francisco Standard, will happily endorse candidates for elections.

With the primaries underway and election fraud claims already getting airtime, it would be ideal to see well-developed and carefully implemented solutions from all major players at this stage, but several key statements were published later in the year in 2024 and we can hope for more commitments and detailed plans to emerge as November approaches.