Laetitia Saint-Paul, Deputy of the French National Assembly, said during a keynote address at the NXT Conclave 2026.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the nature of cognitive warfare and posing new challenges for democratic societies, Laetitia Saint-Paul, Deputy of the French National Assembly, said during a keynote address at the NXT Conclave 2026.
Speaking on the theme of artificial intelligence and cognitive warfare, the member of France’s National Assembly said the use of information manipulation, propaganda and psychological operations has long existed in history, but AI has fundamentally changed the scale and impact of such tactics.
She said techniques such as creating fake accounts, funding influencers, spreading disinformation and coordinating campaigns across digital and physical spaces have become easier with AI tools. However, she stressed that AI should not be seen merely as another tool but as part of a broader technological shift.
Describing the development as an “industrial revolution,” Saint-Paul said artificial intelligence has become widely accessible and is capable of producing large volumes of convincing content at low cost.
She cited an incident on May 22, 2023, when an AI-generated image depicting an explosion near the Pentagon circulated rapidly on the social media platform Twitter. The image briefly triggered a decline in the S&P 500, the leading stock market index in the United States.
According to Saint-Paul, the episode demonstrated how a digitally created image with no real-world basis was able to influence global financial markets within minutes. She said the incident highlighted vulnerabilities in the modern information ecosystem, where machine-generated content can blur the line between reality and simulation.
The French lawmaker said AI now enables the automated and large-scale production of narratives that can influence collective behaviour even before facts are verified. Through algorithmic personalisation and visual simulation, she said the battle for information is increasingly becoming a war of perceptions driven by automated systems rather than human actors.
Saint-Paul argued that this technological shift coincides with what she described as the “post-truth era,” where emotional responses often take precedence over factual accuracy. In such an environment, she said public support for messages is frequently shaped by their ability to trigger emotions such as fear or indignation.
Digital platforms, she noted, rely on recommendation algorithms that amplify such emotional triggers to capture attention and influence public opinion. As a result, disinformation has evolved into what she described as a tool of “emotional engineering.”
She warned that this trend poses a challenge to the “cognitive sovereignty” of democracies, particularly when societies rely on digital infrastructures that they do not fully control. According to Saint-Paul, the public sphere is increasingly shaped by algorithmic systems that influence attention, amplify emotions and redefine shared perceptions of truth.
Calling for stronger regulatory responses, she said governments must develop frameworks to safeguard democratic debate, protect electoral processes and strengthen the cognitive resilience of open societies.
Saint-Paul also presented three proposals from a fact-finding mission on artificial intelligence and foreign interference that she led in 2025 for the Foreign Affairs Committee.
