Generative artificial intelligence is rapidly changing the practice of political communication. Political leaders, advisers, advocates and speechwriters use AI to research issues, analyse evidence, test arguments, explore alternative formulations, anticipate criticism and refine speeches for public delivery.
Mastery of cutting-edge communications technology may mean the difference between winning or losing at the next poll. You can be sure that, if the tool is available, your opponents will be using it. There is strong incentive in political and business life to use whatever tools will deliver the best outcomes.
Used judiciously, AI can function as a research assistant, critical interlocutor and editorial aid. For speechwriters, the key to effective use of generative AI is to master the use of prompts. Using the right prompt, and using prompts to best effect, is more complex that it may at first appear. I have arranged the following 25 AI prompts to demonstrate the wide application of generative AI to the craft of speechwriting, and to show how the technology may enlarge rather than replace human judgment.
1. Analyse the rhetorical situation
Prompt: “Analyse the rhetorical situation for this speech: who is speaking, to whom, on what occasion, in what political context, through which medium, for what purpose and under what constraints? What response is reasonably being sought from the audience?”
Every speech is an intervention in a particular moment. A parliamentary address, campaign launch, policy announcement, concession speech or national commemoration requires a different rhetorical strategy. Before deciding what should be said, establish why these words are being spoken, to these people, in this place and at this time.
2. Establish the political and historical context
Prompt: “Analyse the political, historical, institutional and social context relevant to [issue]. Identify the developments necessary for understanding the present debate, and distinguish established facts from contested interpretations.”
Political speeches necessarily compress complicated histories. AI can provide preliminary orientation and identify matters requiring further research, but significant historical and political claims should be checked against authoritative sources.
3. Map the policy landscape
Prompt: “Explain the principal policy positions concerning [issue]. Identify areas of agreement and disagreement, the strongest evidence supporting competing positions, and significant alternatives that may be neglected in partisan debate.”
Political controversy often creates false binaries. Responsible speechwriting requires understanding the range of serious positions before advocating one of them.
4. Examine the evidence
Prompt: “Identify the strongest empirical evidence relevant to [policy question]. What official statistics, legislation, research findings, reports or historical comparisons are important? Distinguish robust evidence from contested claims and identify everything requiring independent verification.”
AI should help identify what needs investigation, not manufacture evidence for conclusions already reached.
5. Test statistics and factual claims
Prompt: “Examine these claims and statistics: [insert material]. Identify possible problems involving definitions, dates, denominators, sample sizes, selective time periods, inappropriate comparisons, causal inference or missing context.”
A statistic may be literally correct yet seriously misleading. Political truthfulness requires contextual accuracy as well as technical accuracy.
6. Identify the central argument
Prompt: “Using the following research and policy material, formulate five possible one-sentence propositions expressing the central argument of the speech. Each should be clear, defensible and capable of organising the speech as a whole.”
The argument should precede the slogan. A memorable line is valuable when it crystallises serious thought, not when it substitutes for it.
7. Test the argument adversarially
Prompt: “Construct the strongest reasonable case against the position I intend to advocate. Avoid caricature. Identify inconvenient evidence, serious counterarguments and assumptions I may have overlooked.”
Rather than repeatedly asking AI to strengthen an existing position, use it to expose weaknesses. Political judgment improves through serious engagement with disagreement.
8. Examine the logic
Prompt: “Analyse this argument for unsupported assumptions, false dichotomies, selective evidence, causal overstatement, inconsistency, straw-man arguments, irrelevant appeals or other logical weaknesses. Suggest how the argument could be made more defensible.”
Political rhetoric necessarily simplifies. Good simplification clarifies complexity; bad simplification distorts it.
9. Distinguish fact, interpretation and advocacy
Prompt: “Classify the principal claims in this speech as factual assertions, interpretations, predictions, value judgments or policy recommendations. Identify places where opinion is presented as fact, prediction as certainty, or significant uncertainty is concealed.”
Political speakers are entitled to advocate strongly, but they should know when they have moved from describing circumstances to interpreting them or arguing about what ought to be done.
10. Identify the moral framework
Prompt: “Identify the principal moral concepts underlying this argument—for example justice, liberty, equality, security, solidarity, dignity, responsibility and the common good. Where do these values reinforce one another, and where are they in tension?”
Political arguments are rarely purely technical. Debates about taxation, migration, defence, welfare, climate or education invariably involve judgments about what matters and whose interests should receive priority. Making these premises visible strengthens intellectual honesty.
11. Examine ethos, logos and pathos
Prompt: “Analyse this speech in terms of ethos, logos and pathos. Is its reasoning coherent? Are its emotional appeals appropriate and proportionate? What impression of the speaker’s character, credibility and intentions does the speech create?”
AI can strengthen each rhetorical dimension, but it can also manufacture the linguistic appearance of compassion, courage, humility, anger or conviction. It cannot supply the corresponding virtues. The ultimate test of ethos is whether there is reasonable correspondence between language, character and conduct.
12. Examine narrative, metaphor and framing
Prompt: “Identify the principal narratives, metaphors and frames operating in this speech. What story does it tell about the past, present and future? What do its metaphors illuminate, and what might they conceal?”
Calling immigration a “flood,” taxation a “burden,” politics a “battle” or the nation a “family” does more than embellish an argument: such metaphors encourage particular interpretations of reality. Political speeches similarly organise events into narratives, often moving from memory through present challenge and possibility toward action and hope. The speaker remains responsible for whether that story illuminates political reality or mythologises it.
13. Examine the meaning of “we”
Prompt: “Analyse every significant use of ‘we’, ‘our’, ‘they’ and ‘them’ in this speech. Who is included in the political community being imagined, and who is excluded? Does the language unnecessarily divide legitimate members of the community into insiders and outsiders?”
Few political words are more consequential than we. Political rhetoric continually defines belonging and may either enlarge solidarity or construct it by identifying people who supposedly do not belong.
14. Test the treatment of opponents and vulnerable groups
Prompt: “Review this speech for caricature, attribution of motives, guilt by association, stereotyping, scapegoating, dehumanising language or unfair representation of opponents and affected communities. Suggest ways to permit vigorous disagreement without misrepresentation.”
Democratic politics requires disagreement; it does not require transforming opponents into enemies. Particular care is warranted where rhetoric concerns minorities or communities with relatively little political power.
15. Distinguish persuasion from manipulation
Prompt: “Identify passages relying excessively on fear, resentment, tribal loyalty, scapegoating, false urgency or exaggerated claims of crisis. Suggest ways to retain rhetorical force while respecting the audience’s capacity for independent judgment.”
Emotion is indispensable to political communication. Fear, anger, grief, compassion, pride and hope may all be appropriate responses to political realities. The ethical question is whether emotion illuminates what matters or circumvents judgment.
16. Identify whom to consult
Prompt: “Given this proposed speech on [issue], identify the people, communities, specialists and stakeholders I should consult before finalising my position. What questions should I ask each? Include supporters, critics and people directly affected by the policy. Explain what genuine human consultation could contribute that AI analysis cannot.”
Speechwriting begins with listening. Consultation with communities, experts, critics and people affected by policy provides knowledge that AI cannot independently supply. AI may assist consultation; it should not become a simulation of consultation.
17. Adapt to the audience without surrendering conviction
Prompt: “Review this speech for an audience of [describe audience]. What knowledge can reasonably be assumed? What requires explanation? Which concerns should be acknowledged? Do not recommend saying something merely because this audience is likely to approve of it.”
Audience awareness is essential; audience capture is dangerous. Effective communication adapts language, explanation and emphasis to an audience without making conviction infinitely adjustable according to the preferences of the room.
18. Develop stories and illustrations responsibly
Prompt: “Suggest historical examples, personal stories, literary references or contemporary cases that could illuminate this argument. Do not invent people, quotations, incidents or statistics. Identify everything requiring independent verification or permission.”
Stories translate policy into human experience, which is precisely why they carry ethical responsibilities. Individual experiences should neither be fabricated nor distorted, nor presented as representative without adequate grounds.
19. Audit the provenance of the research
Prompt: “Review the evidence supporting this speech and create a source audit. For each significant factual claim, identify the original or most authoritative source I should consult, distinguish primary from secondary evidence, note its date and relevant limitations, and flag claims that appear to rely on circular citation, partisan interpretation or weak evidence. Do not invent sources.”
This goes beyond ordinary fact-checking by asking where claims originated, how reliable their evidentiary foundations are, and whether apparently independent claims ultimately derive from the same source.
20. Conduct a hostile-reading exercise
Prompt: “Read this draft as an intelligent but unsympathetic political opponent, journalist and independent fact-checker. Identify statements most vulnerable to contradiction, quotation out of context, accusations of inconsistency, factual challenge or legitimate criticism. Distinguish genuine vulnerabilities from merely partisan attacks, and suggest corrections where warranted.”
A hostile reading provides a useful stress test without allowing fear of criticism to drain a speech of substance or conviction.
21. Test authenticity and consistency
Prompt: “Compare the arguments, values and language in this speech with the speaker’s established public positions and characteristic manner of speaking [provide relevant material]. Identify unexplained inconsistencies, sudden changes of terminology, exaggerated claims, borrowed-sounding rhetoric and passages that seem unlike the speaker. Do not manufacture consistency where the speaker’s position has genuinely changed.”
One danger of AI-assisted speechwriting is that a manuscript may become rhetorically accomplished while ceasing to sound like the person who must deliver it. AI should assist a speaker’s voice rather than replace it.
22. Refine language, rhythm and memorability
Prompt: “Edit this speech for clarity, economy, cadence and oral effectiveness. Examine sentence length, parallelism, antithesis, repetition, triads, transitions and opportunities for strategic silence. Identify memorable sentences that crystallise the argument rather than functioning merely as slogans. Preserve the speaker’s distinctive voice.”
A speech is written primarily for ears rather than eyes. Contemporary political communication adds the temptation to write for the extractable sentence—the headline, television grab or social-media clip. A memorable sentence should concentrate the argument, not replace it.
23. Anticipate consequences beyond the immediate audience
Prompt: “Analyse how this speech might be received not only by the immediate audience but also by political opponents, journalists, affected communities, international audiences and people encountering only short excerpts through news or social media. Identify passages particularly vulnerable to misunderstanding or harmful interpretation. Do not recommend removing a defensible argument merely because it may attract criticism.”
A contemporary speech rarely remains confined to its original occasion. It may subsequently exist as headlines, video clips, quotations, commentary and archival material. Responsible speechwriting therefore considers both the immediate audience and the speech’s potential secondary audiences.
24. Conduct the final factual and rhetorical audit
Prompt: “Conduct a final audit of this manuscript. Verify or flag quotations, statistics, historical claims, legal assertions, names, dates and policy descriptions. Identify everything that can be removed without weakening the argument. Then review the remaining text as spoken communication, noting any passages that are difficult to understand, speak or remember.”
The discipline of omission has become more important in an age of generative abundance. AI makes adding another paragraph almost effortless; good speechwriting often depends on removing one. Ask: If listeners remember only one idea tomorrow, what should it be? The greater the rhetorical importance of a factual claim, the greater the obligation to verify it independently.
25. Evaluate the speech after delivery
Prompt: “Evaluate this speech after delivery. Consider the clarity of its argument, factual accuracy, ethical integrity, rhetorical effectiveness, audience response and subsequent interpretation. What worked? What was misunderstood? What should be retained, revised or abandoned next time?”
Add evidence of reception, and ask your AI to distinguish evidence from inference. should be a reflective practice rather than merely a process of production. The gap between intended meaning and received meaning can teach speakers something about their rhetoric, their audiences and the political circumstances in which communication occurs.
Rev Dr Rod Benson is General Secretary of the NSW Ecumenical Council and a minister of the Uniting Church in Australia serving at North Rocks Community Church in Sydney.
Image source: ABC TV
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