US candidates reshape websites to influence chatbot answers

Political campaigns in the United States are starting to rewrite websites and other online profiles to shape what AI chatbots tell voters about candidates. The shift reflects the rise of answer engine optimization, or AEO, as tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini pull fresh information from the web instead of relying only on older training data. Missouri state legislative candidate Dustin Lloyd used guidance from CampSight, a tool launched in June by Run for Something Action Fund, to add a campaign Q&A and strengthen profiles on sites like Wikipedia and Ballotpedia. Researchers say candidates with bigger budgets may go further, publishing content designed specifically to be picked up and repeated by chatbots.