Fundraising consultants may be on the frontlines for potential disruption by AI tools because of their use of copywriting and email coding — two tools generative AI platforms offer clients.
But some Democratic practitioners are saying their experience this cycle shows just how far away the platforms are from replacing human creatives.
“AI can be really useful, it can be a great assist, but sometimes it makes things up that didn’t happen,” Fiona Cahill, director of fundraising and advocacy at Assemble the Agency, recently told C&E. “I don’t see a world in which AI is replacing us.”
Cahill used the example of asking an AI platform to code an email to the point where she could just drop it into a CRM platform. “It misunderstands instructions a lot that, frankly, it’s faster to do it myself.”
Audrey Glaser, email director at Middle Seat, said her shop has weighed deploying AI tools based on cost.
“We haven’t found one that is worth it at cost,” she said. “At this point the tech itself is still getting there — especially for the specific use case of political copywriting.”
Still, she added that Middle Seat is interested in AI’s audience modeling potential. For instance, finding “prospects for re-engagement.”
She said the company has some internal tools that it uses now for those activities but “applying more advanced machine learning or AI tech to those tools will be the next generation for us.”
