How One Voter Data Firm is Meeting the AI Age

When Paul Westcott first arrived at L2 more than a decade ago, he was a relative newcomer to the campaign business. Now, he’s preparing to lead the voter and consumer data firm into the age of artificial intelligence. 

Westcott was named the new president of L2 on Monday, taking over day-to-day operations for the firm’s longtime lead Bruce Willsie, who will remain in his role as CEO. The promotion makes Westcott only the third president in the company’s 55-plus-year history.

In an interview with Campaigns & Elections, Westcott acknowledged that he has his work cut out for him. L2 has grown immensely over the years, and now boasts a staff of about 50 people. Data and privacy protections have proliferated, creating compliance challenges that didn’t exist a decade ago. And of course, there’s AI, which has put new pressures on political and data professionals, who are racing to adopt the new tech. 

“One of the big things I’m focused on is ensuring we’re preparing for the future,” Westcott said. “Looking at things like AI, looking at things like how we are going to handle regulatory shifts, which is a huge part of the data space right now – making sure we’re future-proof.”

But Westcott and L2 aren’t taking the “move-fast-and-break-things” approach to innovation that has been encouraged with the rise of new technologies. Rather, Westcott said that one of his biggest priorities is “ensuring that we continue to provide what’s made us successful: data.”

L2’s staff holds a monthly call to discuss how they’re using AI, what they’re experimenting with and how the emerging tech might be useful. Westcott said that the firm has no intentions of downsizing its staff or changing its offerings as a result of AI usage. The real goal is “to see where AI can fill gaps, where it can step in and provide an extra layer of oversight and quality insurance.”

The focus remains on providing the “raw material” to pollsters, campaigns and analysts, many of whom are beginning to merge AI into their work, he said. 

“You don’t want the technology to let you get out over your skis. That’s when mistakes happen,” Westcott said. “I want to make sure that we continue to keep the highest possible standards, and you can’t do that if you just throw in new tech and hope it does what you want it to do.”

Of course, that’s not to say that AI is a bad thing, Westcott added. “It’s an opportunity” for the industry, he said, but one that voter-data providers need to approach mindfully. 

“We’re very deliberate,” Westcott told C&E. “We’re not a rocketship-type company that throws everything at the wall to see what sticks. We want to innovate. We want to do new things, but we want to do it deliberately because our clients rely on that precision.”