As the midterm elections approach, AI is making foreign influence campaigns faster, more convincing and harder for governments to expose before false content spreads. In this Q&A, WilmerHale Partner Josh Geltzer explains why that evolving threat has become a business concern—from the disinformation employees encounter to the difficult choices it can create in the workplace—and why realistic tabletop exercises, backed by rigorous follow-through, are essential preparation.
Geltzer held several roles in the administration of former President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., including Deputy Assistant to the President, Deputy White House Counsel and Legal Advisor to the National Security Council (NSC), where he advised the President and senior White House leaders on matters of national defense, intelligence and foreign relations.
Here are his insights on the risks facing organizations this election season and the steps leaders can take to prepare:
Q: With midterms approaching, what should every executive be thinking about right now?
Josh Geltzer: Elections used to be seen as primarily a government responsibility. Not anymore. "Elections are not just a matter of governance and governments. They are societal undertakings." That shift means companies now have to reckon with the fact that their own employees may be "consuming disinformation... generated by artificial intelligence, or at least improved by it" — a risk he says "looms larger this cycle than we have seen before."
Q: When the government suspects a foreign influence campaign, how does it typically confirm that — and why does timing matter so much?
Josh Geltzer: The process was never fast, even before AI. "This identification and outing of foreign influence, especially in election season, was hard enough in the pre-AI age." That's because "analysis takes time. Accurate characterization takes time. Sometimes declassification takes time." Meanwhile, the clock keeps running against the government: "the very thing the foreign adversary wants to do is happening — that content is going viral."
Q: How has AI changed that equation?
Josh Geltzer: "AI complicates all of this in a number of dimensions." It doesn't just make disinformation more convincing — it makes it more targeted. AI can help "turn it into what seems like native English-speaking language," and can generate content "geared toward particular segments of the US population" that's been "tested and tried out online" before it's fully unleashed on the public.
Q: Once a piece of disinformation is confirmed as foreign-sponsored, what's the risk for businesses?
Josh Geltzer: It's a genuinely tricky spot. Companies "want their employees to participate in our democratic processes," but when foreign campaigns distort what people consume, "it may become challenging for companies to see that then percolate in the workplace." If an employee brings in content that's since been outed as foreign disinformation," that can place an employer in a bind" — caught between wanting to flag it and worrying that doing so "intrude[s] into the political space where employers are rightly cautious and wary of stepping in."
Q: Shifting to preparation — what actually makes a tabletop exercise worth the time investment?
Josh Geltzer: It starts well before anyone sits down at the table. "A good tabletop exercise takes a remarkable amount of work ahead of time." The hard part is designing scenarios that are realistic enough to matter but not so familiar that they teach nothing new — avoiding situations "a company... has actually lived through the year before," while still keeping things plausible enough to be useful.
Q: What separates an exercise that actually changes behavior from one that's just an interesting conversation?
Josh Geltzer: What happens afterward. "It also takes commitment to after-action" — the session itself is often "lively, even fun," but its real value comes when "there is organizational commitment to put in the work after" to act on what was learned. His bottom line: "I think that level of commitment really makes for a good, valuable exercise."