Spain's conservative opposition ran a fake AI election ad

Spain's conservative opposition party, the Partido Popular (PP), ran an election advertisement this week that used artificial intelligence to make a fake video of people linked to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's Socialist party, and one of the people depicted filed a legal challenge on October 23.

The advertisement ran across the party's social media channels and had nearly 2 million views by October 23, according to the Guardian. The fabricated video uses AI likenesses of people linked to Sánchez's Socialist party and depicts them appearing to admit to acts such as soliciting prostitutes and taking kickbacks. An AI-generated version of Sánchez's wife, Begoña Gómez, appears to speak about receiving a university post because of her husband's job, and a fabricated version of the former Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero appears to speak about hiding jewelry in a safe. Both segments nod to ongoing investigations in which Gómez and Zapatero have denied wrongdoing. At the bottom of the video, in tiny, nearly transparent font, a line states that it was created with AI.

Leire Díez, a former Socialist party member whose likeness the fabricated video used, filed the legal challenge against the PP, calling for the advertisement to be taken down immediately. In the court complaint, as reported by the Guardian, Díez reportedly accused the PP of defamation and digital identity theft. The complaint concerns a segment that used her likeness to hint at accusations that she worked to undermine judicial and law enforcement to help the Socialists.

The PP has dismissed the criticism. Borja Sémper, of the party, told reporters, according to the Guardian, that "if there had been malicious intent to make people believe that the characters who appear there are real, then we'd have a problem," but that "everyone can see that this is a way of using digital tools to highlight the hypocrisy in which the Socialist party operates."

Spain's digital transformation minister, Óscar López, told the broadcaster TVE on October 23 that the video is "telling people a colossal lie" and that "it's very easy for anyone who isn't used to AI to confuse that video with reality." RTVE published the interview.

The legal picture is contested. In an analysis reported by the Guardian, El País consulted nine legal experts, and a majority concluded the PP's video was not illegal, given that it was labeled as AI-generated and the overall tone was political satire. Íñigo Navarro, a former dean of the law faculty at Madrid's Comillas Pontifical University, told the paper that "given the context, everyone knows those people didn't say those things." Juan Antonio Lascuraín, a professor of criminal law at the Autonomous University of Madrid, told El País that it was "quite another matter to ask whether it's appropriate, exemplary or ethically and politically correct."

José Javier Olivas, an associate professor who researches populism and AI biases at Spain's National University for Distance Education, called the video a "red line" in how campaigns normally unfold. "You're using the images of other people, putting words in their mouths that they're not saying, [and] this qualifies for disinformation," he told the Guardian.

The use of AI in political advertising has also drawn attention in the United States ahead of next month's midterm elections. The Wesleyan Media Project, a research group based at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, said in an October 15 release that it had counted 220 AI-generated or AI-enhanced political ads with more than $137 million in spending, and that 81 percent of them came from Republican candidates or groups. "AI is making its way into the 2026 midterms in a big way this year," said Erika Franklin Fowler, a co-director of the project. "For comparison, we identified less than $50,000 in spending on AI-generated ads in the 2024 cycle."

For creators who make political video with these tools, the case turns on disclosure and framing. The PP labeled the video as AI-generated, and that label, together with the video's satirical register, is central to the legal experts' conclusion that the advertisement was not illegal. A label does not settle the question for platforms or audiences. The complaint seeks the advertisement's immediate removal, and no court has ruled on it.

Spain's general election is scheduled for November 29, and most polls suggest the PP will win but need the support of the far-right Vox party to form a government.