Campaign Disclosures Show at Least $17 Million Spent on AI Vendors Since 2020

American campaigns have paid AI vendors at least $17 million since 2020, according to a new analysis of federal election filings. The payments span 523 federal candidates and campaigns. That is a substantial trail of spending, but it does not show every way AI enters a campaign—or even what each listed purchase was used to do.

A payment is not a use case

Nathan Sanders and Bruce Schneier examined itemized Federal Election Commission expenditures dating back to 2020. Their count identifies payments to AI technology vendors; it is not a count of AI-generated speeches, messages or ads. A filing can name a supplier and an expense category without explaining how campaign staff used a tool.

Take the general-purpose chatbots. At least 80 federal campaigns and committees reported spending with OpenAI since 2024, totaling about $50,000. Many listed the charges as office expenses, ChatGPT subscriptions for staff or research tools rather than political services. In 2026, at least 65 candidates or committees reported paying Anthropic, up from essentially none in earlier years covered by the analysis.

Anthropic’s reported customers were nearly twice as likely to be Democrats as Republicans, while OpenAI’s reported spending skewed slightly Republican. Those figures describe who paid each company, not what the tools produced. Only about 12% of the campaigns or committees reporting payments to either vendor paid both.

The larger checks went beyond chatbots

Campaign-focused services account for some of the most striking vendor totals. AmplifAI, which provides automated text messaging, received $4.7 million in campaign spending in the 2022 cycle, according to the analysis. Its reported spending appears to have tapered off since then. The figure shows why chatbot subscriptions alone give a narrow view of this market: campaigns can also pay for systems built to contact voters.

Another AI-powered texting vendor, Daisychain, has drawn about $300,000 in reported candidate spending in the 2026 cycle, compared with about $50,000 in 2024. More than half of this cycle’s reported total came from Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate campaign in Michigan. That concentration matters: one campaign’s purchases can move a vendor’s total sharply without showing that every campaign is adopting the service.

At least $92,000Identified spending since 2022

The authors identified this much spending confidently attributable to modern generative AI vendors across California, Colorado, Massachusetts and Washington.

At least 108Candidates and committees

The four-state total spans at least 108 candidates and committees since 2022.

A faster year in the states

In those four states, reported spending on the generative AI vendors the authors could confidently identify is already about ten times the amount reported for all of 2024. The state total is smaller than the federal figure, but the two are not a nationwide state-versus-federal comparison: the state analysis covers only California, Colorado, Massachusetts and Washington, and starts in 2022 rather than 2020.

The ad dollars are a different measure

Spending disclosed directly to well-known image and audio generators is modest in the authors’ tally. Six federal candidates or committees reported paying ElevenLabs about $1,400 in total; five reported paying Midjourney about $1,600. That does not mean AI-made campaign media is equally rare. Wesleyan Media Project data cited in the analysis identified at least 164 political ads containing AI-generated media in the 2026 cycle, backed by at least $80 million in ad spending.

The $80 million paid to run those ads is not spending on AI software, and it should not be added to the $17 million vendor tally. The mismatch points to a visibility problem. Consultants, media firms and other hired vendors can use AI on a campaign’s behalf without their own AI purchases appearing as itemized candidate expenses. These disclosures track payments to named vendors, not every place AI shapes a campaign.