Regional broadcasters, including Omroep Brabant, are launching KiesKennis, an AI election chatbot that helps residents find reliable information about the 2026 municipal elections. The application was developed at the initiative of regional broadcaster Rijnmond and is deployed nationally by eight regional public broadcasters, under the coordination of the Regional Public Broadcasting Foundation (RPO).
ChooseKnowledge offers residents the opportunity to ask questions in a conversation about themes that play a role in their municipality. The chatbot emphatically does not provide voting advice and does not express any political preference.
Instead, the system searches a defined knowledge base with election manifestos, position notes and voting behavior of political parties in motions. This way, voters can form their own judgment based on verifiable information.
The application does not have free access to the Internet and does not add its own information. If no relevant source is available, the chatbot will not provide a substantive answer. This gives users safe and user-friendly access to factual, political information.
Privacy
The technology runs within the European Union and complies with the GDPR. No user profiles are built up and no commercial data processing takes place.
With the project, the regional public broadcasters are investigating how AI can be applied responsibly within the public domain, with journalistic independence as a starting point.
Jan MĂĽller, director of the RPO: “Electoral knowledge shows how regional public broadcasters can use innovative AI without making concessions to reliability and public values. With this joint step, we help residents to become better informed about local politics and strengthen democracy, precisely where it is closest to people.”
Curious? Tap here to go to KiesKennis.
