A covert operation involving a non-existent think-tank is attempting to manipulate AI chatbots to favor Israel. By using "Generative Engine Optimization," the campaign seeks to influence how tools like ChatGPT and Claude present the Gaza conflict.
The Hanover Institute for Public Policy's ghost-written influence
The Hanover Institute for Public Policy serves as the front for a sophisticated effort to alter the training data of large language models.. According to the report, this organization has no physical address and is not registered as a legal entity, yet it publishes reports designed to be ingested by AI assistants. The strategy employs Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), a technique similar to search engine optimization but specifically tailored to influence the response patterns of AI chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude.
By seeding the internet with specific narratives through the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, the campaign aims to ensure that users receive a more favorable view of Israel's foreign policy. This approach targets the very foundation of how AI models "learn" and retrieve information, attempting to bake a specific political bias into the AI's perceived reality.
Havas Media and Piro Inc.'s FARA-linked AI seeding
The actual content production for this campaign is handled by Havas Media, a French public-relations firm. As the report says, Havas Media is required to file paperwork under the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which provides a paper trail for the operation. a subcontractor named Piro Inc. is specifically tasked with uploading articles to the Hanover Institute's website that frame anti-Zionism as a security threat and minimize reports of humanitarian restrictions within Gaza.
Piro Inc. openly markets its ability to manipulate AI chatbots to promote commercial products, but in this instance, the "product" is the national image of Israel . The FARA filings explicitly state that the goal is to "educate the U.S. public regarding Israel and related issues through publicly distributed content," confirming that the operation is a calculated political move rather than an organic academic effort.
Reversing the 60 percent negative American view
This information war follows the October 7, 2023, attacks that resulted in 1,200 deaths and a subsequent war in Gaza that has claimed at least 73,000 lives, according to local sources . The urgency of the campaign is driven by a sharp decline in international support. Recent polls indicate that 60 percent of American addults now hold a negative view of Israel, creating a crisis of perception in a critical allied nation.
As the American public increasingly bypasses traditional search engines in favor of AI assistants for quick answers, the battle for narrative control has shifted. The use of GEO represents a pivot from trying to win a debate in the press to trying to control the automated summaries that millions of people now trust as objective truth.
The missing funding records for the Hanover Institute
Despite the scale of the operation, significant gaps remain regarding the financial and human architecture of the campaign. The Hanover Institute for Public Policy lists no authors for its reports, claiming that the sources are more important than the researchers' reputations.. This anonymity masks the true identities of the individuals crafting the narratives being fed into AI models.
Furthermore, while the report mentions billions of dollars being funneled into GEO strategies,the specific sources of this funding and the oversight mechanisms governing the money remain unknown. The Hanover Institute for Public Policy has not responded to inquiries, leaving the public to wonder which government bodies or private donors are bankrolling this attempt to engineer AI consensus.
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