AI-Written Letters Are Pressuring Bonta Before Paramount’s Merger Costs $7 Million a Day

A pro-merger advocacy group is using AI to turn short responses from Californians into personalized letters urging Attorney General Rob Bonta to drop his opposition to Paramount’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. In one documented test, the software changed an anti-merger message into a pro-merger letter and added a first-person story about financial hardship that the sender hadn’t provided.

The campaign is arriving ahead of two expensive dates for Paramount. Starting October 1, the delayed closing will add roughly $7 million a day to what Paramount owes Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders. Paramount, Bonta’s office and the Writers Guild of America are scheduled for two days of settlement talks on October 14 and 15.

More Perfect Union highlighted the AI letter campaign in a new video this week. The organization also has a direct role on the other side of the merger fight: the More Perfect Union Foundation is paying for Block the Merger billboards in California and New York.

The letter campaign gives deal supporters another way to pressure Bonta before Paramount begins paying hundreds of millions of dollars for additional delay.

The Software Can Turn “Block the Merger” Into “Drop Your Opposition”

Neighbors for Strong Communities asks Californians about their work histories, financial concerns and experiences with job loss. Its website then sends those responses through Influent, an AI advocacy service that produces a personalized message for the participant to review.

The campaign has one stated request for Bonta: “Drop your opposition to the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger.”

Archival producer Rachel Antell tested the system by entering 14 words thanking Bonta for working to block the merger and save media jobs. The draft she received took the opposite position. It urged Bonta to drop his opposition to the deal.

The software also wrote a personal story about struggling to find consistent work. Antell said she hadn’t supplied that experience.

Participants aren’t required to send whatever Influent produces. Neighbors for Strong Communities says people can review the finished message, edit it and decide whether to submit it. That gives the sender a final approval step.

The Antell test shows how much can happen before that step. The software didn’t simply fix grammar or expand her original argument. It replaced the position she entered and supplied a first-person experience she hadn’t described.

Influent sells that ability to advocacy organizations as a feature. Its website says the service collects individual stories through short surveys and automatically turns them into unique letters and other messages. It specifically promotes the fact that no two letters are the same.

Paramount Will Start Adding Roughly $650 Million Per Quarter on October 1

Paramount agreed to increase its cash payment to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders if the acquisition remained unfinished after September 30. The additional payment accrues daily and can reach approximately 25 cents per share each quarter, or about $650 million every three months.

That works out to roughly $7 million a day.

Paramount says it has completed the other conditions required to close the acquisition and received regulatory clearance in 69 jurisdictions. The lawsuits brought by 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild are keeping the transaction from closing.

The company has asked the federal court to require the plaintiffs to post a bond covering as much as $1.88 billion in ticking fees and other financing costs. Paramount estimates that it could accumulate approximately $1.3 billion in ticking fees by the time the antitrust case finishes briefing in April.

The Justice Department has supported requiring a bond. The states and the WGA oppose Paramount’s request and argue that Paramount voluntarily agreed to the deal terms that created the ticking fee.

Paramount has also explored moving its headquarters and parts of its operations out of California if the dispute remains unresolved. That put California jobs, tax revenue, production spending and studio real estate directly into the merger negotiations.

The AI letter campaign is using the same pressure point. Neighbors for Strong Communities asks Californians to tell Bonta that continued opposition to the merger could cost the state entertainment jobs and investment.

AI Lets One Campaign Produce Thousands of Different Letters

Traditional advocacy software usually gives supporters a form letter and lets them add a few lines before sending it to an elected official. Staff can quickly identify hundreds of copies carrying the same subject line and paragraphs.

Influent is built to avoid that.

Supporters answer questions about themselves. The software turns those answers into separate letters with different wording and personal details. Influent promotes the service by telling customers that generic form letters get ignored and that personalized stories receive more attention.

Neighbors for Strong Communities says it has mobilized roughly 2,000 people around the Paramount campaign and generated about 1,000 calls to Bonta’s office. The AI system is being used for the written outreach rather than those calls.

That changes how quickly an advocacy organization can produce individualized correspondence. A campaign staff doesn’t have to interview every supporter and write a separate letter for each person. The software handles the drafting.

It also makes the sender’s original input harder to see once the finished letter reaches a government office.

If somebody submits three sentences and receives a polished three-paragraph letter, Bonta’s staff sees the three paragraphs. It doesn’t automatically see which sentences came from the constituent, which details came from the software or whether the final argument matches the participant’s first response.

Antell’s test showed the problem in its clearest form: the original input opposed the merger while the generated letter supported it.

Neighbors for Strong Communities Hasn’t Publicly Identified Its Funders

Neighbors for Strong Communities says the Paramount campaign operates independently of Paramount. Its website doesn’t identify the organization’s financial backers.

Co-founder Tanner Kelly also founded Influent and registered as a lobbyist in California. He has described the letters as “AI-assisted” because real participants provide information and approve the finished message.

Warner Bros. Discovery has denied financing the text-message outreach associated with the campaign. Paramount hasn’t publicly identified itself as a funder.

The source of the money affects how Bonta’s office can understand the correspondence it receives. A campaign paid for by workers, local businesses or community members has a different origin from one financed by a company, investor or other party with money tied to the transaction.

More Perfect Union’s financial role on the opposing side is public. Its foundation is paying for Block the Merger billboards in California and New York while the organization produces content opposing the transaction.

The funding behind the Neighbors for Strong Communities effort remains undisclosed.

California Passed a New Rule Against Fake Grassroots Support in July

Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1736 on July 13, the same day Bonta announced California’s lawsuit against the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery transaction.

California already prohibited registered lobbyists and lobbying firms from creating a fictitious appearance of public support or opposition to government action. AB 1736 extended that prohibition to lobbyist employers.

The law also covers communications sent to state officials using a fictitious person’s name or a real person’s name without that person’s consent.

Neighbors for Strong Communities says its participants are real people who can review and approve their letters before sending them. No public enforcement action has established that the Paramount campaign violated AB 1736.

The Antell test still gives regulators something specific to examine. Her identity was real and she intentionally used the system. The generated letter didn’t reflect the position or personal experience she entered.

That puts the focus on what the participant actually supplied before the software produced the message.

Both Sides Are Telling Bonta That California Jobs Are at Risk

Neighbors for Strong Communities argues that California could lose entertainment employment if Paramount moves operations elsewhere. Paramount has made the possibility of leaving California part of its effort to settle the lawsuit.

Opponents of the merger are making their own employment argument. Los Angeles County commissioned an economic analysis that estimated approximately 4,500 direct film and TV jobs could be at risk following the combination, with additional losses among suppliers and businesses supported by entertainment workers.

Paramount has also committed to finding $6 billion in annual synergies from the combined company. Those savings would have to come from expenses that include payroll, production, marketing, technology, facilities and outside vendors. The Los Angeles workforce sits underneath many of the costs Paramount plans to remove.

Bonta is therefore receiving two competing employment claims.

Deal supporters say continued litigation could push Paramount and its jobs out of California. Deal opponents say the merger itself could eliminate jobs through consolidation and cost cutting.

AI gives one of those arguments a faster way into the attorney general’s office.

The Streaming Wars Take

Paramount will begin adding roughly $7 million a day to the acquisition price on October 1. That gives deal supporters a reason to push every available route before and during the October settlement talks.

Paramount is pursuing a $1.88 billion bond, considering moving operations out of California and offering operating commitments such as maintaining theatrical output. Neighbors for Strong Communities is generating constituent calls and personalized letters asking Bonta to settle.

AI lets the letter campaign produce individualized messages without paying people to draft each one separately.

The question for Bonta’s office is concrete: What did each sender actually say before the software rewrote it?

A tally showing thousands of different letters no longer proves that thousands of people independently wrote thousands of different arguments. Antell entered a message opposing the merger and received one supporting it. She provided no personal story about struggling to find work, and the software supplied one.

Paramount doesn’t have to finance the campaign for those letters to support the outcome it wants. They urge the same official to take the same action Paramount is seeking before the same $7 million-a-day deadline.

How much pressure those letters create will depend on whether Bonta’s office treats the finished AI-written message as the constituent’s position, or looks back at what the constituent actually entered.