Since the beginning of 2024, Microsoft and Google have taught dozens of campaigns and political groups on generative AI tools like their Copilot and Gemini chatbots, the companies told WIRED this month.

For quite awhile, big tech companies have hosted workshops for political staffers and groups to learn more about their products, especially when it comes to cybersecurity. But this year, they’ve started including lessons on how campaigns could leverage AI ahead of the 2024 election.

Microsoft says it tailored these training sessions to the needs of national-level campaigns to help them save time and cut costs. The company demonstrates how Copilot, its AI chatbot, could be used to quickly write and edit fundraising emails and text messages.

“Just like any small business could leverage AI, we believe a campaign could too,” Ginny Badanes, general manager for Microsoft’s Democracy Forward program, said in an interview earlier this month.

In a statement to WIRED last week, Microsoft said that it’s completed 90 trainings with more than 2,300 participants in 20 countries and five continents, including Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. There have been more than 40 trainings held in the US this year with over 600 participants, the company said. While the European workshops began late last year, the US trainings began this February.