By David Gilbert
Publication Date: 2026-01-22 19:00:00
“We are entering a new phase of information warfare on social media platforms, where technological advances have overtaken the classic bot approach,” says Jonas Kunst, professor of communications at BI Norwegian Business School and one of the report’s co-authors.
For experts who have tracked and combated disinformation campaigns for years, the paper represents a frightening future.
“What if AI didn’t just hallucinate information, but thousands of AI chatbots worked together to provide the guise of grassroots support where there was none? That’s the future this article imagines – Russian troll farms on steroids,” says Nina Jankowicz, the Biden administration’s former disinformation czar who is now CEO of the American Sunlight Project.
According to the researchers, it is unclear whether this tactic is already being used, as current systems for tracking and identifying coordinated inauthentic behavior are unable to detect them.
“Because of their elusiveness…
