More than 30 tech companies have pitched A.I. tools to political campaigns for November’s election. The campaigns have been wary.

Sam Wood

Matthew Diemer, a Democrat running for election in Ohio’s Seventh Congressional District, was approached by the artificial intelligence company Civox in January with a pitch: A.I.-backed voice technology that could make tens of thousands of personalized phone calls to voters using Mr. Diemer’s talking points and sense of humor.

His campaign agreed to try out the technology. But it turned out that the only thing voters hated more than a robocall was an A.I.-backed one.

While Civox’s A.I. program made almost 1,000 calls to voters in five minutes, nearly all of them hung up in the first few seconds when they heard a voice that described itself as an A.I. volunteer, Mr. Diemer said.

“People just didn’t want to be on the phone, and they especially didn’t want to be on the phone

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