TLDR: Foreign disinformation campaigns are increasingly leveraging advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, including deepfakes and generative AI for content translation and adaptation. This surge in AI-driven influence operations coincides with a perceived reduction in U.S. resources and a lagging regulatory framework to effectively counter these evolving threats, raising significant concerns for democratic processes and national security.
The landscape of global influence operations is undergoing a profound transformation, with foreign actors increasingly harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence to amplify disinformation campaigns. This alarming trend is unfolding even as the United States appears to be scaling back its efforts and struggling to establish a robust framework to combat these sophisticated threats.
Countries such as China, Iran, and Israel are at the forefront of this new era, employing AI to conduct covert influence campaigns designed to manipulate public perceptions and spread propaganda. These networks extend beyond mere deepfakes, utilizing tools like ChatGPT to translate and adapt misleading content into various languages, thereby broadening their reach across international audiences and fostering division and distrust.
A stark example of this capability emerged in the summer of 2024, when a fabricated video surfaced depicting a U.S. State Department official falsely claiming a Russian city was a target for Ukrainian strikes using American weaponry. This deepfake rapidly disseminated across Telegram channels, with Russian state media and government officials actively amplifying the false narrative.
Experts warn that AI presents a ‘double-edged sword’ in this battle. While AI can be a powerful tool for detecting and countering false information, it simultaneously exacerbates the problem by making disinformation campaigns more convincing and significantly harder to identify. Major tech companies, including OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft, have acknowledged that foreign governments are weaponizing these technologies to influence public opinion.
Concerns about AI-generated disinformation have been highlighted in prominent global assessments. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2024 and 2025 reports identified disinformation as a major short- and medium-term risk to humanity, underscoring its potential to make reality increasingly complex and difficult to discern.
Compounding this challenge is the perceived inadequacy of the U.S. response. Critics argue that America’s AI strategy is falling short, with the nation lagging in regulating this rapidly advancing technology. The rapid escalation in the ‘AI arms race’ underscores how far behind the U.S. has fallen in tech regulation, having ‘done nothing to grapple with the catastrophic societal harm social media giants have unleashed over the past 15 years.’
Furthermore, the Global Risks Report 2025 points to unilateralism and an exacerbation of national security actions on political agendas, particularly in the United States, as factors causing negative repercussions globally. Such behaviors can reduce transparency, mirroring practices in authoritarian regimes, and potentially contribute to the consolidation of such regimes while undermining democratic ones.
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This scenario indicates that liberal democratic regimes may be failing to deliver on promises of inclusion and equality, leading to disillusionment among populations. This disillusionment, combined with the growing influence of social media and AI, is being exploited in political narratives that distort facts and relativize truth in favor of extremist ideals, posing a direct threat to contemporary democracy.
