The 2028 US presidential race is shaping up to be the first election where AI is both a top issue and a weapon, and that's bad news for anyone who trusts what they see online.

• Campaigns are training chatbots that talk in a candidate's voice for hours, learning exactly what words move each voter.
• Operatives are also building fake "synthetic voters" to test ads on before real people ever see them.
• The bigger danger is flooding social media with bots that fake likes and comments, making fringe views look popular and fake stories look real.
• A new battleground is trying to shape what popular AI tools like Claude, Gemini, Grok, and ChatGPT say about candidates.
• Older people are seen as the easiest targets, much like phone scams pretending to be Amazon or the IRS.

Outlook: As the tech keeps improving, expect a flood of convincing fake videos and messages in the run-up to 2028, with the burden falling on voters to verify what's real.