They don’t march in the streets or storm the polls, but a new breed of AI-controlled personas could be the next big threat to democracy. According to a new policy forum paper in Science, Swarms of AI personas mimic humans so well they can infiltrate online communities, shape conversations, and tilt elections—all at machine speed. Unlike old-school botnets, these agents coordinate in real time, adapt to feedback, and sustain coherent narratives across thousands of accounts.