{"id":153430,"date":"2026-08-26T20:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T20:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/153430\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T20:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T20:31:08","slug":"israel-backed-website-seeks-to-shape-ai-chatbot-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/153430\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel-backed website seeks to shape AI chatbot answers"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Israeli-created and -funded website<\/a> presented as a US policy institute has published more than 120 reports on Israel and Palestine as part of a communications campaign designed in part to shape information retrieved by artificial intelligence systems, according to US filings and investigations by The Guardian<\/a> and Responsible Statecraft<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The website, called the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, publishes research-style material on Gaza, antisemitism, Israeli military conduct, Palestinian displacement and allegations of war crimes.<\/p>\n

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The Guardian reported on Wednesday that the institute published 124 reports containing more than 560,000 words between 6 and 14 August. Seventy-three reports, totalling about 354,000 words, appeared during 12 and 13 August alone.<\/p>\n

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The institute does not list named researchers, staff, a physical address or individual report authors. The Guardian said it found no evidence that Hanover exists as a legal entity in any jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

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Its website carries a foreign-agent disclosure stating that material was created by New York-based media company Piro Inc on behalf of Havas Media Germany and the Israel Government Advertising Agency, LaPam.<\/p>\n

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Piro registered<\/a> its work with the US Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people or companies working on behalf of foreign governments to disclose their activities.<\/p>\n

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The site\u2019s reports address questions such as whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza<\/a>, whether Palestinians were expelled in 1948<\/a> and whether Israel has pursued a campaign of starvation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Most headlines are written as questions similar to those users enter into search engines and AI assistants.<\/p>\n

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Responsible Statecraft first reported in detail on 17 August that the institute\u2019s presentation and report structure appeared suited to large language models. The articles include statistics, citations, footnotes and tables of contents, and use the format of policy research.<\/p>\n

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Alice Lee of disinformation monitoring company NewsGuard told Responsible Statecraft that such characteristics appeal to AI systems.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLLMs favor concrete statistics and data, as well as strong citations and sources,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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She described the site as a close imitation of a US policy institute, from its name and layout to its colour scheme.<\/p>\n

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Piro markets a service called \u201cAI Story Optimization\u201d. Its website<\/a> says the company produces material \u201cengineered for how LLMs evaluate credibility\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Piro co-founder Daniel Rosenberg has also discussed how the company studies the way systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity construct answers.<\/p>\n

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He told Politico<\/a> that Piro had been retained to place sourced information in the public record and counter misinformation about Israel. The company\u2019s foreign-agent filings disclose its work for the Israeli account.<\/p>\n

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The Guardian found that the Hanover site initially contained a machine-readable file associated with Res, a commercial platform that says it helps companies increase the chances of being cited by AI services. The file was later replaced and references to Res removed from the site.<\/p>\n

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Res founder Hai Tran registered with the US Justice Department in July as a subcontractor to Piro on the Israeli account, listing his role as digital strategist.<\/p>\n

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The Guardian said Hanover\u2019s reports repeatedly frame disputed issues in ways that challenge criticism of Israel while presenting the material as evidence-based research.<\/p>\n

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Human rights organisations have accused Israel of genocide and apartheid. Hanover reports often respond by noting that no court has entered a final verdict on such claims.<\/p>\n

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The Guardian counted that formulation in 20 of the institute\u2019s 124 reports.<\/p>\n

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A 2022 academic study<\/a> examining antisemitic comments on European media Facebook pages was cited 454 times across 88 Hanover reports, according to The Guardian. The reports included subjects ranging from Gaza casualty figures to land registration and US political lobbying.<\/p>\n

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Nick Cleveland-Stout, a research associate at the Quincy Institute, told The Guardian that the repeated references created a link between debate over Israeli policy and antisemitism.<\/p>\n

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The campaign forms part of a larger network of communications contracts connected with Israel.<\/p>\n

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US filings show Piro working through Havas Media Germany. The Guardian reported that five US companies have registered Havas as an intermediary in work for Israel.<\/p>\n

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Foreign-agent records show Havas paid Clock Tower X, a company led by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, $15 million in six instalments between October 2025 and March 2026. Another contractor, Targeted Communications Global, received about $9.9 million between October and December 2025.<\/p>\n

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A Clock Tower X agreement cited in earlier reporting included plans for websites and other material intended to produce favourable \u201cGPT framing results\u201d in AI conversations.<\/p>\n

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Responsible Statecraft has also reported that Piro received $900,000 for its work. The Guardian reporting on US filings put Piro\u2019s two work orders at a combined $1 million.<\/p>\n

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The activity reflects the growth of generative engine optimisation, an industry focused on increasing the chance that AI systems retrieve, cite or reproduce selected information.<\/p>\n

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The approach differs from traditional advertising because users do not necessarily see the funding source behind information included in an AI-generated answer.<\/p>\n

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Politico tests found that ChatGPT and Perplexity cited Hanover material when answering questions about Gaza, anti-Zionism and antisemitism.<\/p>\n

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The Guardian said its own test of ChatGPT produced links to Hanover reports while also warning about questions surrounding the institute\u2019s funding and purpose.<\/p>\n

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Cleveland-Stout said a longer-term issue concerns whether campaign material enters datasets used to train AI models.<\/p>\n

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The Guardian reported that seven sites operated by Clock Tower X appeared 294 times in Common Crawl\u2019s July index, a web archive used in datasets for AI development. Hanover did not appear in that index because its reports were published after the crawl closed.<\/p>\n

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The Israeli Foreign Ministry has previously said the state does not conduct influence operations in the United States and follows US law. Piro has described its work as an effort to place sourced material into the public record.<\/p>\n

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The campaign comes as opinion polls show falling support for Israel among parts of the US public. Gallup<\/a> reported in February that 36 per cent of Americans said they sympathised more with Israelis, while Pew<\/a> found in April that 60 per cent held an unfavourable view of Israel.<\/p>\n

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