OpenAI says it disrupted Russian and Iranian influence ops that used ChatGPT

Russian and Iranian influence campaigns used ChatGPT to spread propaganda through social media, news outlets and a fake research organization, researchers said.

In a safety report on Thursday, ChatGPT maker OpenAI said it had banned accounts linked to both campaigns, which used artificial intelligence alongside more traditional tactics to spread political propaganda.

Russian operatives used ChatGPT to help run a covert influence campaign across Latin America, including by setting up a fake research organization called the Social Research Center (SRC).

The center publicly described itself as a research platform focused on the Indian diaspora in Latin America and relations between India and countries in the region. According to OpenAI, however, Russian operatives appeared to control the organization through a fabricated identity.

The campaign also recruited people in Latin America to conduct research for the center, apparently without disclosing its Russian connections.

“The available evidence suggests that these on-the-ground employees had no idea that they were working for a Russian operation, and conducted research tasks in good faith,” OpenAI said.

Much of the center's published material appeared to be original research produced by those employees rather than AI-generated content, the report said.

The Russian operation mainly aimed to damage Ukraine’s reputation in Latin America, but some of its activities also appeared designed to influence domestic politics in countries such as Argentina and Bolivia.

Its operators used ChatGPT to create fake leaked documents and scripts for audio recordings, some of which circulated online. At least some of the false claims spread widely enough to prompt fact-checks and official denials, according to the report.

The company did not attribute the campaign to a specific threat actor but said evidence suggested connections to a Russian organization known as Politology or La Compania, which has been reported to be a successor to influence operations associated with the late Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group.

The campaign's operators primarily communicated with ChatGPT in Russian and appeared to be based in Russia.

“Since we do not allow access to our models from Russia, they used VPNs to connect to our services,” OpenAI said.

Iranian operation

The separate Iranian campaign used seven fake journalist identities to pitch articles about the U.S.-Iran conflict to online publications.

OpenAI said it identified nearly 100 articles published or republished under those identities across roughly a dozen outlets, primarily small and midsize publications covering international affairs, geopolitics and the Middle East.

The earliest identified article appeared in July 2025 and the latest in October 2026, according to the report. OpenAI did not identify any of the publications.

The operators used ChatGPT to improve lengthy articles, prepare pitches to editors and draft internal reports. They also generated batches of social media comments in English and Persian on political and geopolitical topics.

The social media activity appeared to attract little attention, with researchers identifying relatively few likes, views or replies. Some of the outlets that published the articles, however, had substantial audiences. One had nearly 2 million Facebook followers, according to OpenAI.

The accounts involved in the operation appeared to originate in Iran, primarily used Persian-language prompts and accessed ChatGPT through VPNs, the company said. OpenAI did not identify the individuals or organizations responsible.

According to the report, both the Russian and Iranian campaigns went beyond fake social media accounts, using seemingly independent organizations to spread their messages.

"What is most striking about these operations is that they closely resembled complex influence operations of the pre-AI age, but used AI to make some of the workflows easier," OpenAI said.