AI meets politics: Examining the effects of different targeting strategies across 15 countries

This study investigates the persuasive effects of messages generated with artificial intelligence in online political targeting, focusing on three distinct strategies: targeting based on political orientation, age, and personality traits. Through an experimental design conducted across 15 countries ( N = 7118), we uncovered that political targeting based on voters’ pre-existing political orientation, receiving messages from a party that is already favored by the receiver, had a persuasive impact on voters. These effects included higher likability of the ad and heightened issue importance. Contrary to popular belief, targeting based on age or a combination of multiple categories does not affect persuasive outcomes. Taken together, by building upon a cross-national analysis, this research provided a robust analysis of how multiple targeting strategies influence the electorate in an EU election context.