While investment in artificial intelligence has become a key driver of US economic growth, anxiety is growing over job destruction, energy use, environmental damage and potentially the survival of the human race. AI is reshaping work, neighborhoods and everyday life as data centers spread across the landscape. Many Americans aren’t happy — and it’s an election year. The AI industry is very much aware. The 2026 midterms could determine who gets to write the rules for the technology — or if any are written at all.

Companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to elect candidates sympathetic to their preferred approach, turbocharging a campaign season that’s already the most expensive in history. On this weekly documentary from , we explore how much AI has come to dominate the debate.

Among the companies that make up the AI industry, there seems to be some disagreement on the way forward. Some contend they want strong regulation at the federal level, while others are funneling money to candidates who insist on a light touch that (they say) won’t hamper innovation. The result is a political arms race where AI groups are spending unprecedented amounts, ostensibly in pursuit of different legislative goals. While consensus in Washington remains elusive, local and state-level opposition to data centers is forcing political action.

And beneath the hundreds of millions of dollars being raised and deployed is a larger question: will the future rules governing AI be determined by the industry financing the campaigns, or by the people the technology claims to serve? In this video, we take a look at the landscape between here and election day.