Public affairs runs on primary sources: what was said, by whom, in which chamber and on what date. AI is good at reading and summarising those sources quickly. It is dangerous when it fills a gap with something plausible, such as a quote a minister never gave or a committee date that never happened. A tool list for this work has to start from the record and treat AI as a fast reader that still needs checking.
These are the tools worth knowing in 2026, organised by the jobs a public affairs team does, with the free official sources alongside the paid ones. Every tool links to its entry in the Comms With AI tools directory, where you’ll find current pricing, data terms and the full review. Where I use a tool myself, I say so.
What are the best AI tools for public affairs?
The short answer, by job: PolicyMogul, Dods Political Intelligence, Vuelio or DeHavilland to monitor Parliament, or the free official sources with TheyWorkForYou alerts if you follow one or two issues; Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM), Claude or Perplexity to read consultations, bills and debates; a stakeholder map across Westminster and the devolved parliaments, kept in a template or a monitoring tool’s CRM; Claude or ChatGPT to draft consultation responses, briefings and letters (or Microsoft Copilot if your drafts need to stay in Microsoft 365); and Granola with Wispr Flow for meeting prep and notes.
The Comms With AI Briefing lands on Fridays, with comms and AI news and what’s new on the site, tool guides included.
A note before the list
The tool matters less than the workflow around it. A fluent briefing is a liability if it states a position your organisation has never taken. Pair anything below with a structure: the Position Register for what you have said publicly and when, the Key Messages Grid for what you want to say, and the Claims Substantiation Checklist before any claim goes to a policymaker.
Political monitoring
Specialists still earn their fee here, because they watch every chamber and filter what matters. A general assistant can’t do that reliably on its own: it doesn’t see Parliament in real time, and it can sound sure about debates it hasn’t read.
PolicyMogul
PaidFree trial; Starter £395 a month billed annually, or £495 monthly, for one user; Pro from £595 a month with unlimited users (ex VAT)
UK political monitoring, stakeholder mapping and a policymaker CRM in one product, with an AI assistant on every plan and AI summaries from Pro. It is one of the few in this category to publish its prices, and it says every plan can be used inside Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude, so a team can query its monitoring from the assistant it already uses. It suits a small in-house team that wants monitoring and stakeholder work in one place. The entry plan covers one user and one topic, so most teams will look at Pro.
Full pricing, data terms and review Directory entry checked October 2026.
Dods Political Intelligence
EnterpriseQuote only; subscriptions built around your sector and team, with a free trial
Long-established UK political monitoring with a team of political consultants behind the alerts. Its Dods AI search answers questions only from Dods’ own archive and cites the source of each answer. It suits a team that wants analysts as well as software. Its site doesn’t describe devolved coverage, so ask to see Holyrood, Senedd and Stormont material in the trial if you need it.
Full pricing, data terms and review Directory entry checked October 2026.
Vuelio Political Services
EnterpriseQuote only; sold in modules, with a free demo
Monitoring across Westminster, the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly, filtered by a political team, with a political contacts database and a reporting dashboard. It makes most sense if you already use Vuelio for media monitoring and want political work from the same supplier. Its AI features sit in the separate Lumina suite.
Full pricing, data terms and review Directory entry checked October 2026.
DeHavilland
EnterpriseQuote only; two-week free trial
Analyst-led political monitoring and horizon scanning, with dedicated Scotland and Wales services and an EU service from Brussels. It suits a team whose policy work spans the devolved parliaments or the EU. Northern Ireland isn’t mentioned on its site, so confirm coverage if you need it.
Full pricing, data terms and review Directory entry checked October 2026.
The free route. For a team following one or two issues, the official record plus a general assistant goes a long way. TheyWorkForYou, run by the charity mySociety, sends free email alerts when your words are mentioned in Westminster, the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd or the Northern Ireland Assembly. Then go to the source: Hansard for both Houses at Westminster, the written questions and statements site, committees for inquiries and evidence, and bills for each bill’s stages. For the devolved parliaments, use the Scottish Parliament’s Official Report, the Senedd’s Record of Proceedings and the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Official Report. Paste the relevant passage into an assistant to summarise, rather than asking the assistant what was said.
Reading consultations, bills and debates
Free; higher limits with Google AI Plus £4.49 a month or Pro £18.99 a month
Gemini Notebook, called NotebookLM until Google renamed it in July 2026, answers only from the documents you load and points to the passage each answer came from. I’ve used it, and that grounding is what suits public affairs: load the bill, the explanatory notes and the consultation paper, ask what changes for your sector, and check each answer against the paragraph it cites. It won’t tell you what’s missing from the sources you gave it.
Full pricing, data terms and review Directory entry checked October 2026.
Claude also handles long policy documents well: it holds a whole consultation in view and works for questions such as “where does this paper contradict the impact assessment?” Give it the document itself: its own knowledge of legislation has a cut-off and gaps.
Free; Pro $20 a month
An AI search assistant that cites its sources, useful for the desk research around an issue: what has been reported, which think tanks have published, and what the opposition said last month. Follow every citation to the original before you rely on it.
Full pricing, data terms and review Directory entry checked October 2026.
Check every quote against the record
Check every quote attributed to a parliamentarian against Hansard or the official report before you use it anywhere. AI tools can paraphrase, merge two speakers or produce a quote that sounds right and was never said. The record is free and searchable, so the check takes a minute.
Mapping stakeholders across Westminster and the devolved parliaments
Who matters on an issue depends on where the power sits. Health in Scotland runs through Holyrood, not Westminster, and the same issue can have different decision-makers in Cardiff Bay and at Stormont.
The Stakeholder Mapping Matrix gives you the structure: power, interest and current position for each person or body. A general assistant can help you populate it from public sources, such as committee memberships, written questions and registers of interests, which TheyWorkForYou now publishes for all four legislatures. Check each entry yourself, because roles change after reshuffles and elections. If you buy a monitoring tool, PolicyMogul and Vuelio both include a political contacts database, so you can keep the map and your contact history in one place.
Drafting consultation responses, briefings and letters
Free; Pro $20 a month, or $17 a month on annual billing
Claude is my main tool, and I draft with it first. For a consultation response, give it the consultation questions, your position and your evidence, and ask it to mark anything it has no evidence for. It holds a measured tone well across a long response, which matters when the reader is a civil servant or a committee clerk.
Full pricing, data terms and review Directory entry checked October 2026.
Free; Plus $20 a month
I use ChatGPT as a second reader. Once a draft is done, I paste it in and ask what is weak. For public affairs work, ask it to read a briefing the way a sceptical special adviser or an opposition researcher would. A second assistant from a different maker is a cheap way to get a fresh read.
Full pricing, data terms and review Directory entry checked October 2026.
Copilot Business add-on £16.10 a user a month on an annual commitment, or £19.32 billed monthly (ex VAT)
If your organisation runs on Microsoft 365, Copilot drafts in Word and Outlook inside your existing security perimeter. That matters for unpublished positions, draft evidence and anything you’d rather not paste into a consumer tool.
Full pricing, data terms and review Directory entry checked October 2026.
Build the response from material you control: the Proof Points Bank for evidence, the FAQ Builder for the questions officials and members are likely to ask, and the Monthly Stakeholder Update for regular briefings to the people on your map.
The lobbying registers, including the UK Register of Consultant Lobbyists and the Scottish Parliament’s Lobbying Register, still apply whatever tool drafted the approach.
Meeting prep and notes
Free with 30 days of history; Business $14 a user a month
Granola is what I use for most meetings. It transcribes without keeping the audio, so there’s no recording left after a sensitive conversation. For a meeting with a politician or an official, ask first and respect a no: some will not want to be transcribed, and that is their call.
Full pricing, data terms and review Directory entry checked October 2026.
Free allowance; Pro $15 a month, or $12 on annual billing
I use Wispr Flow for dictation every day. Talking through what was said straight after a meeting, while it is fresh, and handing that to Claude is a quick route to a clean note for colleagues.
Full pricing, data terms and review Directory entry checked October 2026.
How to choose without over-buying
The common mistake in public affairs is buying a monitoring platform when a narrow brief needed free alerts and a good assistant, or the reverse for a team covering four legislatures. Four steps keep you honest.
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Name the job first
Monitoring, reading, mapping, drafting: name the bottleneck before you look at tools. Plan Comms With AI turns a described need into a brief and a route through the library.
Describe your need in Plan -
Check the data policy before the feature list
Unpublished positions, stakeholder notes and draft evidence are sensitive, so what your organisation permits matters more than what the tool can do. Log what you approve as you go.
Open the AI Tool Register -
Score the shortlist the same way
Judge every monitoring trial against the same issues and legislatures, on one framework, so the loudest demo does not win.
Use the evaluation framework -
Know where your team stands
A five-minute scored test gives a fast read on readiness before you spend anything; the full worksheet follows when you want the whole picture.
Take the AI Readiness Scorecard
More guides by comms stream, each organised by job and dated.
Next steps
Put it to work
- Free Plan Comms With AI Describe the public affairs job in front of you and get a brief, a route through the library and a copy-ready prompt. Start a plan
- Toolkit Messaging Foundation Positioning, key messages and proof points, built in order, so every response and briefing starts from the same agreed lines. Open the toolkit
- Directory Every tool, with data terms Pricing, governance notes and first-hand reviews for the tools above and many more, dated so you know how fresh they are. Browse the tools directory
- Reading Testing ChatGPT Deep Research What an AI research agent got right and wrong on a real comms brief, and where it earns its place. Read the Applied piece
- Help for your team Want it set up properly? Consult, Deploy, Training and Manage for in-house comms teams putting AI to work, delivered directly by Michael MacLennan. See how we can help
- Template Position Register A standing record of what your organisation has said publicly, when and where, so a new response can be checked against the old ones first. Open the template