AI Information Synthesis and Content Polarization

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) can synthesize dispersed information into balanced and informative content, raising the possibility that AI may help reduce polarization. We show that this promise can be undermined by the strategic response of content producers. We develop a game-theoretic model in which consumers acquire information to make downstream decisions, content producers allocate limited informational capacity between broadly valuable vertical information and horizontally differentiated information, and AI provides an alternative source of synthesized information. The effects of AI unfold in three phases as its reliability increases. When reliability is low, AI has no effect on the market. At intermediate levels, AI disciplines prices without attracting consumers or changing content. When AI becomes sufficiently reliable, consumers begin to substitute toward it, and content producers respond by shifting informational capacity away from the vertical dimension and toward horizontally differentiated content, thereby increasing content polarization. The mechanism operates through audience composition: AI attracts consumers who are less well matched to individual producers, leaving producers with stronger incentives to cater to their remaining audiences. The polarization effect intensifies with AI reliability but weakens with greater competition among content producers. Our findings highlight a potential wedge between AI's direct and equilibrium effects: a technology that provides consumers with more balanced information can indirectly make the broader content ecosystem more polarized.