Israel is trying to shape what AI chatbots say about Gaza and the IDF
According to Politico, a campaign run through a French PR giant and a newly created research institute is flooding the internet with pro-Israel content designed to influence the information AI systems retrieve and cite.
Israel is launching a campaign aimed at influencing how AI chatbots such as ChatGPT respond to questions about Gaza, the IDF and other issues related to Israel, by flooding the internet with pro-Israel content designed to be picked up and processed by large language models, according to Politico, which reviewed documents filed with the U.S. Department of Justice.
The campaign reflects a new front in Israel's long-running public diplomacy efforts. As users increasingly turn to AI chatbots for information about current events, governments and political groups are seeking to influence not only what people see on social media and search engines, but also the information sources that AI systems use when generating answers.
According to Politico, the campaign was organized through French advertising and public relations giant Havas Media, which has been working with the Israeli government on influence efforts in the United States. The documents were filed under U.S. rules requiring foreign entities conducting certain lobbying and public-relations activities to disclose details of their work.
One Havas subcontractor, boutique agency Piro, created a purported research organization called the Hanover Institute for Public Policy. The organization was used to publish articles intended, according to the documents, to provide material that could be consumed and processed by AI systems.
The institute's website has a generic design and its articles are unsigned. A notice at the bottom of the site says that the materials are distributed by Piro on behalf of Havas and the Government Advertising Agency of the Government of Israel, and directs readers to the Justice Department for additional information.
The website was built and operated by U.S. startup Res, which has previously said it helps companies improve how they are represented in responses generated by AI systems.
The campaign was budgeted at $100,000 to "create and distribute informative materials designed to educate the U.S. public about Israel and related issues through publicly distributed content," according to one of the documents.
Some of the articles were written in formats that resemble questions users might ask AI chatbots, including "Is the IDF the most moral army in the world?", "Is there a starvation policy in Gaza?" and "Are Jews foreign occupiers of Israel?"
The strategy appears to be based on the idea that increasing the volume and visibility of a particular set of online sources can influence the information retrieved or cited by AI-powered search and chatbot systems. It is not the same as directly retraining or modifying ChatGPT or other large language models.
According to Politico, the campaign may already be having an effect. An investigation by the publication found that ChatGPT and Perplexity cited articles published by the site in responses to questions involving Gaza, anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
The development highlights a growing challenge for AI companies: unlike traditional search engines, chatbots can present users with a synthesized answer rather than a list of competing sources, potentially giving greater influence to the material that AI systems retrieve and cite.
It also opens a new arena for political influence campaigns. Governments and other organizations have spent years trying to improve their visibility in Google search results and shape narratives on social media. As AI assistants increasingly become a gateway to information, the target is shifting toward the systems that generate the answers themselves.
"Piro was hired by the Israeli government to integrate accurate and authoritative facts into the public discourse, and to combat misinformation about Israel with verified information," Piro founder Daniel Rosenberg told Politico.
Havas, the Hanover Institute, Piro and the Israeli Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment, according to Politico.
