At Epicenter, we consider that information and knowledge ought to meet individuals the place they already are: Not simply on our web site or of their inbox, however within the areas the place our communities join day by day. With early voting underway and Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 3, easy accessibility to correct voter data is vital to combating misinformation. That features the platforms that individuals already use, like textual content and AI instruments.
So we’re making an attempt one thing new this election season. Textual content or WhatsApp your election inquiries to 347-252-9070 and get solutions drawn from our reporting and trusted URL Media companion newsrooms collaborating on this pilot. Solutions come from protection and sources we’ve vetted, not the open internet, and join you again to our newsrooms.
Our communities are already asking AI
Pew Analysis Heart discovered that 8% of U.S. adults are already utilizing AI chatbots for 2026 election data, rising to 11% of adults below 50. Amongst these customers, 71% are checking whether or not one thing they heard or learn is correct, and 40% are in search of registration, polling place or vote-by-mail data.
Individuals are already typing these questions into ChatGPT, Claude or Google search and Gemini. So the query isn’t whether or not our communities will flip to AI this election. It’s whether or not the solutions they get come from sources they know and belief. This pilot is the bridge: a accountable technique to make it possible for when our neighbors ask, our native reporting is a part of the reply. We’re right here to ensure AI is working in service of our communities, not the opposite approach round.
On the apps our communities already use
One in three U.S. adults makes use of WhatsApp, and use is way larger in communities of shade: 56% of Hispanic adults, 51% of English-speaking Asian adults and 40% of Black adults, in contrast with 24% of white adults. For most of the households we serve, WhatsApp is the place the group chats, the household updates and the neighborhood information already dwell. It’s why Mayor Mamdani launched El Chisme Oficial de NYC, a Spanish-language channel connecting New Yorkers with Metropolis Corridor.
Our Elections 2026 by URL Media chatbot is one other door into our reporting and URL Media companions’ protection. It doesn’t substitute our reporters, and it doesn’t write new tales. Whether or not you’re looking by means of our web site, discovering data on, scrolling by means of social media posts or watching TikTok movies, you, our neighbors, could have yet one more place to entry verified data from the staff they’ve trusted because the pandemic.
The way it works
Epicenter NYC is main this pilot in partnership with URL Media, a nationwide community of impartial media organizations and creators serving various communities. Six URL Media companion newsrooms have joined the pilot: AsAmNews, Documented, India Currents, Native Information On-line, The Electorette and The Oklahoma Eagle. Their voter guides and election protection, alongside ours, energy each reply.
The software runs on Suwali, a neighborhood dialogue platform constructed by Meedan, a worldwide nonprofit know-how group that has powered a number of election initiatives and likewise runs our well being chatbot. It solutions solely from the sources and reporting we hook up with it, by no means the open internet. You may ask concerning the voting course of and the problems in your poll main as much as Election Day on Nov. 3.
We wish your trustworthy suggestions. It gained’t be good – we all know this
Since we began this mission, we’ve recognized the worth of our staff’s authentic reporting and that know-how together with AI won’t ever be good. There will probably be questions the chatbot can’t reply and moments the place it falls brief. That’s precisely why we’re doing it now – to study and see how we will enhance to higher serve you.
This can be a probability for us to study. What you ask, the way you ask it, which points preserve arising and the place the gaps are will form how Epicenter and our URL companions serve voters after the midterms and in future elections. It is going to information the tales we select to cowl and the guardrails we construct to maintain people within the loop. It is going to additionally present us what this work actually takes. Smaller neighborhood newsrooms don’t have the sources of bigger ones, and we’d like instruments that work for us to higher serve you.
AI is transferring quick. For the sake of how we inform and join communities to sources, we have to check these initiatives so we will construct our future.
How one can share your suggestions
Your suggestions is probably the most beneficial a part of this pilot. Inform us what was helpful, the place it allow you to down and what you want it may reply. Our staff will overview how the chatbot responds, however customers will not be recognized. You may attain me or electronic mail hiya at epicenter-nyc.com to share your suggestions.
Attempt it now: Go textual content or WhatsApp 347-252-9070 and ask away.
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