Fact Check Team: How AI agents can run foreign influence campaigns across social media - foxsanantonio.com

Fact Check Team: How AI agents can run foreign influence campaigns across social media

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Artificial intelligence is changing how foreign influence campaigns can operate online — allowing some actors to automate tasks that previously required large numbers of people.

A recent report from The New York Times found that Iran and China, along with private Israeli companies, have used AI agents in novel social media influence campaigns. The technology allowed agents to perform multiple steps of an operation, including creating accounts, generating posts and coordinating activity across platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok.

AI-generated content and fake online personas are not new. U.S. officials have previously warned that foreign actors, including Iran, have used generative AI and inauthentic personas in attempts to influence Americans and sow discord. What researchers say is different about these newer campaigns is the degree of automation.

How does an AI influence campaign work?

AI agents are software systems that can complete a series of tasks with less direct human involvement.

According to The New York Times, hundreds of AI agents were used in some of the newly identified campaigns. They created networks of fictitious accounts, generated political and current-events content and coordinated messages online.

In the Iranian operation, the AI-generated accounts presented themselves as ordinary Americans living in major U.S. cities. The accounts posted memes and political commentary, tagged journalists and politicians, and promoted messages critical of the Republican Party. The accounts accumulated nearly 80,000 followers during the first half of 2026.

That number, however, should not be interpreted as 80,000 Americans being persuaded by the operation. The reporting establishes the number of followers, but it does not establish how many people believed the content or changed their political views as a result.

Why does this matter?

One concern is that foreign actors can exploit political divisions that already exist in the United States.

Instead of simply producing a piece of propaganda, an automated system can potentially create an entire network of accounts designed to make a particular viewpoint appear more widespread than it actually is.

Researchers have also warned that AI can make these operations cheaper and easier to scale. The FBI and CISA previously warned that foreign actors could use generative AI and fake personas to conceal their involvement and attempt to sow discord among Americans.

The technology is not limited to one political side. Foreign influence operations can promote different messages depending on the audience and the strategic objective. Researchers have identified efforts aimed at increasing distrust and polarization rather than simply supporting one political party.

How far can the content spread?

In a separate analysis, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue documented more than one billion views generated by two coordinated pro-Iran networks on X during the first month of the Iran war.

The networks circulated false, misleading and AI-generated material. ISD's analysis found that recommendation algorithms, reposting by larger accounts and coordinated amplification helped some of the content reach large audiences.

But again, views are not the same thing as persuasion. A post receiving millions of views tells us how widely it was seen or counted by the platform's metrics; it does not establish how many people believed it or changed their opinions.

What is actually new?

The use of AI in foreign influence operations isn't itself new. AI has been used for years to generate articles, images, videos and social media posts.

The newer development is agentic AI — systems capable of carrying out multiple tasks with less human intervention.

Anthropic's September 2026 threat-intelligence report similarly documents the expanding use of AI in malicious influence operations and other forms of abuse.

For social media users, that means a post that looks like it came from an ordinary person may not necessarily represent an authentic grassroots political conversation.

The documented campaigns show that foreign actors are experimenting with ways to automate that process. But determining whether those campaigns actually change Americans' political beliefs requires evidence beyond follower counts, views or the existence of fake accounts.