SÃO PAULO — A fictional blonde woman named “Julia Berlli Cortez,” entirely generated by artificial intelligence, has become a flashpoint in Brazil’s fiercely contested presidential election, raising alarms about the use of AI to manipulate public opinion and promote explicit content.
The Viral Deception
At a campaign rally for far-right candidate Flavio Bolsonaro on October 17, 2026, a video began circulating rapidly across social media, accumulating millions of views. It depicted a young blonde woman, scantily clad, dancing and singing alongside the candidate. Her Instagram account surged past 500,000 followers after the clip, in which she presented herself as a devout defender of “traditional values” and urged viewers to vote.
The problem: “Julia Berlli Cortez” does not exist. She is an entirely AI-generated persona, as exposed by Brazilian influencer Guga Figueiredo, who has over 750,000 Instagram followers, and Chilean media outlet FastCheck.
While a real person did dance alongside Jair Bolsonaro’s son at the rally, that individual is actually a man—Congressman Nikolas Ferreira, a conservative figure in Bolsonaro’s party and a supporter of both Flavio and his father before him—who was transformed into a young woman using AI tools.
A Gender Gap and a Calculated Strategy
The runoff election is scheduled for Sunday, October 25, with recent polls showing leftist President Lula and his conservative rival Flavio Bolsonaro in a dead heat. However, the first round revealed a striking gender gap: according to Datafolha polling, Flavio Bolsonaro trailed Lula among women by 11 points (46% to 35%), while leading among men by 5 points (44% to 39%).
“The absence of women at far-right rallies is also weighing heavily,” noted HuffPost Spanish. “So why not add a few more, even if it’s through artificial intelligence?”
This was not the only video featuring “Julia Cortez”—whose account has since been removed by Meta—in support of Flavio Bolsonaro. FastCheck revealed several other identity usurpations, primarily of men, in which she “even answers questions about why she would vote for Bolsonaro in the elections.” Other accounts using the same fictitious blonde woman have since been recreated.
Pornography Promotion and Allegations of Election Manipulation
These publications also serve another purpose: promoting pornographic content, also generated by AI. According to HuffPost Spanish, the biography of “Julia Cortez’s” Instagram account contained a link to a paid Telegram channel with over 150,000 subscribers.
This complicates the narrative of a large-scale electoral manipulation attempt. Yet, nearly simultaneously, revelations from Brazilian outlet The Intercept disclosed that Flavio Bolsonaro and his party spent over $140,000 with American cybersecurity firm Elytron for their AI system.
According to confidential documents, this contract aimed to “massively collect” data and “identify voter groups” in order to “conduct actions such as spreading rumors and disinformation, creating fake social media accounts, and using ‘psychological warfare techniques’ and infiltration methods to discredit opponents.” A description that eerily matches these AI-generated videos.
“Bolsonaro’s campaign team and Elytron deny any involvement in illegal activities—claiming no direct link to the Julia Cortez account has been established,” reported HuffPost Spanish.
A Cautionary Tale for Global Elections
Debates over artificial intelligence in Brazil extend beyond this single case. “Brazil is becoming a textbook case [for AI use in elections],” warned Bruno Lewicki, OpenAI’s head of public policy for Latin America, in an interview with Folha de São Paulo on September 19, as reported by Le Monde.
Le Monde cited other examples: “Dona Maria, a bitter Afro-Brazilian retiree created by a rideshare driver who constantly insults Lula’s Workers’ Party,” also garnering millions of views but entirely AI-generated. Another showed “an Afro-Brazilian worker cleaning anti-Jair Bolsonaro graffiti in a São Paulo metro station on Avenida Paulista after a massive pro-Lula rally”—also fake.
More broadly, social media has been a battlefield throughout the campaign, with both candidates filing legal challenges to disqualify their opponents for “abuse of power.” It serves as a warning signal for France’s own presidential election, which will take place in a few months.
